#2465 - Michael Shellenberger

[00:00] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. [00:11] Good to see you, sir. Thanks for having me back. My pleasure, always. Yeah, so much. [00:16] Crazy shit going on in the world. And even before we scheduled this, like more crazy stuff has happened. The war broke out, all kinds of things. Yeah. [00:27] How are you feeling about President Trump? [00:30] That's an open-ended question. Do you text with him and talk to him? Occasionally. Yeah, occasionally he'll send me a text. I get these like true social posts of things that he's saying. But this whole – [00:46] fucking iran thing man like did you see this coming no definitely [00:51] I don't know. I mean, who did? [00:53] I mean, when did he even decide? [00:55] Their national security strategy they put out in November basically just said we've degraded their capacity. It's a win. There was no sense in which there would be additional action. [01:05] I think it ushers in a new paradigm, completely the older... [01:09] post-war era is just over. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, articulated that, [01:16] probably better than the Trump administration did, saying very clearly that older rules based order is gone. You saw AOC try to sort of articulate it, but she sort of fell apart. The Munich Security Conference in February. So this is an administration that is I mean, and I don't even think they're thinking I wrote a piece and I decided not to publish it because I was sort of like decapitation doesn't really work for regime change. But it's not clear that they're really out for.

[01:40] Regime change or they're just asserting power, shaking up things. I mean, some of it's art of the deal, changing the person that we're negotiating with. That's Venezuela and Iran. [01:51] Is it really going to change those regimes? I don't I don't think most people don't think so, but that I'm not sure that that's what they're going for. They're just going for an assertion of American power in service of American interests. And then what happens in Iran, what happens in Venezuela? I don't think they care that much about. [02:06] at least they're not behaving as though they do. [02:08] Well, definitely. [02:09] But neither thing made any sense to me. The Venezuela thing, I mean, look, they wanted him out forever. [02:17] And he definitely stole the election to get in there in the first place. And he was a dictator. But at least that one was at least clean. They go in, kidnap him, get him out. [02:28] This one's nuts. Like, and what's happening in Tel Aviv, it's hard to know what's real and what's not because there's a lot of fake video going around and a lot of weird posts on X. So it's, you know, when I do peek in, it's hard to know and you have to listen to Grok and then Grok's dismantling a lot of the fake videos. What are the fake videos that you're thinking of in Tel Aviv? [02:58] But it seems like there's a massive amount of destruction in Tel Aviv. [03:03] Yeah, I haven't checked in lately, but I'm assuming. Was that just today or? Yesterday? Yeah, yesterday. [03:07] you know, [03:09] I mean, I think the president is there's been some just, you know, Rubio said something about how we had to act because we knew that Israel was going to act anyway. And I think people interpreted in a Netanyahu was in the White House a lot.

[03:20] I think this president has shown whether you like him or not, you know, and there's certainly things that I'm unhappy about and have criticized. But I think Trump is in charge. Like he's making these decisions. There's nobody behind him. There's nobody going to be pulling for all of that. You know, the Russians or whoever, you know, these now the Israelis. [03:38] You know, it's just he's clearly I mean, Elon gave him, you know, 250 million dollars and he still didn't give him even the electric car credit. You know, like like Trump is in charge. You know, like I think that's one of the big lessons from this. And I don't think that I think. [03:52] That means that there's not a lot of, like, second-order thinking here. Like, oh, what's the move after that? He doesn't know. He's just acting. That's what's so... [04:00] wild about it is that this older foreign policy establishment, which was like, let the experts decide what the right foreign policy, all these think tanks, that's just gone now. It's just irrelevant in this presidency. And I don't think it will come back. Like if you get a Gavin Newsom or President AOC, I don't. President who? I don't think. Yeah. For real? For a minute before Munich. [04:21] But I don't think it's going to come back, and I think that that's what [04:24] The Prime Minister of Canada realized, I think that's what the Europeans are starting to realize, is that this is a completely different world that we live in than the one we lived in. [04:30] Just a couple of years ago. Which just doesn't make any sense to me unless we're acting on someone else's interests, like particularly Israel's interests. It just didn't make any sense to me. [04:39] Like if they had... [04:41] supposedly dismantled their chances of making a nuclear bomb. Whether or not that's true or not, [04:47] It's so hard to know. [04:49] He was unsatisfied and just like he was like, I'm not getting anywhere in these negotiations.

[04:54] And I'm going to replace the person I'm negotiating with. It's it's just, you know, turn over the table, like change things up. You're not getting anywhere. And you could say he was too impatient. Their view was the Democrats were too patient with Iran. They kept trying with Iran. Iran, they weren't giving them what they wanted. I'm not defending it. I'm just saying. [05:13] I think that's what explains it. They haven't done a very good job explaining it because I think that it just sounds – [05:20] to some extent, like what it is, which is that it's they're acting without – [05:25] They're sort of like, well, does it result in regime change in Iran? We don't know. They might say that we want that or whatever, but that's not ultimately – they're not acting on the basis of achieving regime change. [05:33] But it just seems so insane based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars. [05:41] And these stupid senseless wars and then... [05:44] We have one that we can't even really clearly define why we did it. Well, but he said he's against endless wars. Well, they're all endless. They're all endless. Did you ever hear Rumsfeld talk about Iraq when it first happened? [05:58] Tell me. They were talking about like six weeks. Six weeks. Oh, yeah. [06:02] Six weeks. [06:04] Yeah, but they put – that was ground force, and I know that they've not ruled that out. For me, that would be – They have? Yeah. [06:10] They have not. My understanding is that they have not. I thought you said, and now. Yeah, no. But they don't seem eager to go into, I mean, I criticize the Venezuela... [06:19] action because I sort of was like, how are you possibly going to run Venezuela? And then I think a little bit more time passed. I was like, oh, they're not.

[06:26] they're not going to try to run Venezuela. Like, that's not what this is. Um, [06:30] They just wanted to take over the oil. Yeah, and even there, I mean, the oil, it's not... [06:35] significant at any global level. I don't even think it's really about the oil. I don't think it's about the oil. I don't think it's about the oil in Iran either. Well, the oil reserves are significant. It's just the type of oil and how to extract it is extremely difficult. It's the worst, Joe. The big abundant reserves are in the Amazon. So you're talking about what a nightmare. It's super far away. It's terrible. You had a guerrilla conflict. If you had a guerrilla conflict break out around those oil facilities, I mean, it's already more expensive because you [07:05] It's really heavy oils. If you heat it up to get it out of the ground, then you have to heat it to transport. It's a total nightmare. [07:12] I just – I mean – and as a conservationist, I would say that would be the last place I'd want to see – [07:16] us getting oil from. There's a lot other places that have oil we shouldn't be going into the Amazon. [07:22] So, [07:23] What, if anything, makes sense to you about this attack in Iran? [07:28] I don't know that I'm not I'm not sure what I think of it. I mean, I don't I don't like it. I don't like I mean, the whole older system was that you had this international community. [07:39] The U.S. Security Council would have to agree. The Congress would have to agree. That's all gone now. I mean, it's just a totally different – this guy is – [07:46] just acting. You know, he says he's not getting where they want to get in the negotiations with the Iranians. So he says, we have some leverage over you and we're going to use it. [07:53] Clearly, Israel wanted this. Israel has its own motivations, I think. Yeah. But I don't think – I think it's not quite accurate to say that – I just don't think – I think –

[08:03] All the evidence shows that Trump is his own man and he is the president. And like literally he couldn't even give back. He couldn't even give Elon the battery subsidy that he wanted. You know, it's like I get that. I've never seen a poll. I mean, I've never seen a politician act that independently. That's I mean, a president act that independently. So I'm skeptical of. [08:21] I mean, I think that... [08:23] I think that Rubio was sort of like, well, they were going to attack, and so we had to, you know, there's some of that, but I just think, [08:29] Trump's doing what he wants to do. [08:31] You really think it's that simple? Trump's doing what he wants to do and that's it? You don't think people are influencing him? Because there's a lot of war hawks around him, right? There's a lot of people that want this and have for a long time. I mean Netanyahu's in there, but then Tucker was in there a bunch. But do you think Tucker has the kind of influence that Netanyahu has? Well, I mean, I guess if you just base it on the outcome, then the answer is no. [08:54] But that's what I'm saying. I just think he listens to everybody, but I just don't think it's – [08:59] Russians aren't behind him. Israelis, I mean, Trump is, look what he's been through. I mean, he's, you know, he's got where he is. There's no way he's going to, they don't have anything on him. That's why I don't think they have anything on him. But how do you know that? He doesn't behave that way. [09:10] Well, he could, but we don't see any evidence for it. [09:13] This episode of the Joe Rogan Experience is brought to you by Paramount+. UFC history is going down at the White House. It's the world's greatest fights on America's biggest stage. Watch UFC Freedom 250 at the White House live today only on Paramount+.

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[11:29] It's servicetitan.ai. Well, you wouldn't see any evidence until it broke out. Sure. Until they released it. Yeah. And I'm sure we'll get into Epstein. But, I mean, I just think when you don't have evidence of something – [11:42] then you can't assume that it's happening. I haven't seen any. I've seen evidence that Trump is fully independent with it, particularly this case of Elon surprised me. I would have thought at a minimum you'd give your largest campaign contributor. [11:56] the one thing he wants. [11:57] Um... [11:58] I mean, Doge was something you wanted to. But and I look at Iran, I kind of go, you know, Trump is always one. I mean, Trump has been. [12:05] He said he doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon for a really long time. I don't know the exact date, but certainly – Well, no one wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon other than Iran. [12:13] Right. [12:14] Yeah, I think that the – he was – he also put it this way. He was also critical of the Democrats' approach, which was the sort of the mainstream IAEA-approved approach because, of course, under international law, Iran has the right to nuclear energy and to nuclear facilities, including nuclear centrifuges and the enrichment. Iran has a right to all that under international law. And so – and Trump doesn't agree with that, and he's not going to let international law get in his way. [12:40] So when you say he has a right to it, you're talking just about nuclear power. Yeah, right. But that includes enrichment. [12:47] So, you know, we were certain point. Right. But they've already surpassed that point. Right. Yeah. And I believe I you know, if I'm wrong, I'll correct it on X. But I don't think it specifies the level of enrichment is part of the issue. And then you've got these centrifuges. And so it's all been a cat and mouse game. I personally do not doubt for a minute that Iran wants nuclear weapons. That's what's been going on. I think most people think that. But the Obama administration was like, we can do, you know, we can lift sanctions in exchange for controlling their nuclear program.

[13:14] Trump has not for a very long time agreed with that approach. I think he was criticizing it. [13:19] for many years before 2016, before he decided to run, but definitely for the last 10 years. [13:27] Read the thing today that came out that they're discussing some sort of a leak transmission that seems to be an activation of terror cells. [13:36] Iranians have? Yeah. I'm not – no, but I'm not surprised. Right. Sounds bad. But – [13:41] Yeah, that's one of the things that obviously that was the first thing I thought of was like, oh, great. Are we going to get a bunch of. [13:46] Thank you. [13:47] Iranian suicide bombers in the United States now. I don't know if it's going to be suicide bombers, but I would imagine it would be something a little bit more destructive than that. Could be. [13:57] Um... [13:58] I don't know what they can get in. I mean, Sean Ryan's been having folks on that say that people are getting in with heavy artillery. I just don't know the status of it. [14:06] Well, the real problem is for four years, the border was wide open. Oh, yeah. And definitely some people from the Middle East got through. [14:16] And we have no idea, like, what is weight. I mean, I'm sure there are some intelligence agencies that have an understanding of [14:23] of what the threat is. [14:25] I hope so. I mean, I think we see that these terrorists are able to do an incredible amount of damage with pretty simple rifles. [14:31] And sometimes – was it the French, the club, that particular terrorist action? There were other people – [14:39] that were using bombs that like only killed one or two people, but the guys with the machine guns were able to gun down like dozens of people. So certainly that's scary. I think none of us – I think that's where a lot of Americans – when it happened, the reason so many people were against it.

[14:52] I believe a majority is against it is because you're like, great, you know, first of all, is it going to be another endless war? And second of all, are we going to get a bunch of terrorist actions here? I think if we did, I don't think support for the war goes up. I think it goes down. [15:04] Oh, for sure. [15:06] Yeah. [15:07] I mean... [15:08] It's just such a fuck... I mean, the whole... [15:14] The whole situation internationally has been so tense already with what's going on in Gaza, with what's going on in Ukraine. It's like – and to add this to the pile, it's like – [15:24] I mean... [15:26] It genuinely feels like there's a real... [15:29] possibility that we might be entering World War III. [15:32] Thank you. [15:34] How would that, what would that look like? I don't know. I never expected Iran to start attacking, you know, they launched bombs into UAE, Dubai. I mean, where else? I think they expected that though, right? I mean, it makes Iran look, Iran looks pretty isolated. I mean, I will say, you know, I was totally, obviously, maybe not obviously, but very much on the left and was opposed to all the stuff Reagan was doing. I remember even in the 80s. [16:01] But it's like he really did... [16:03] I'm not going to say he was the only reason. There was obviously a bunch of weakening within. But, I mean, he really did push back against communism. He challenged the entire foreign policy establishment on the basic view of just – [16:14] um, [16:15] of just kind of keeping it [16:18] Keeping the communists where they were. And instead Reagan really pushed back against it and said there's got to be regime change. It's sort of almost at a moral level.

[16:25] Certainly there's a defense buildup, but a moral argument. [16:28] And I think it had a big impact and to bring down communism. So I'm you know, the Iranian it's it's I'm obviously have very mixed feelings about it. The Iranian regime is just so evil and so awful that, you know, you're you're you're every time you see videos of people taking these courageous actions, you're like somebody bring that regime down. On the other hand. [16:47] That country is pretty the the people of that country are pretty radical. And the Shah in 1979, I just spent last night watching all the old 60 minutes from the 70s. They're amazing. But the Shah was really modernizing the country. There was a lot of wealth coming in. There's a lot more inequality. There's also a lot more state repression from his intelligence services. But the country was full of radical Muslims who wanted, you know, that when all that instability, they wanted to revert back to a radical Islamist regime. And that's still. [17:16] Now, I've seen other estimates to say that, you know, the current regime is incredibly unpopular in Iran. But [17:22] you know, how that works out. It's really hard to say, but there is something I caution my own, [17:26] I talk back to my own anti-interventionist instincts when I think about Reagan just being like, [17:31] We're not going to do just containment strategy anymore. We're actually going to talk back to communism because people deserve to be free. And now, is everything better for – is everything fine in Russia? [17:42] Maybe not, but I mean communism was just awful, just a totally soul-killing, crushing, a giant lie. I mean it's awful totalitarianism. Yeah. [17:53] I think we have to kind of keep that in mind, and especially when you're in a moment of just such incredible chaos like we're in now. I tell my students, I'm like, you get to live through...

[18:02] one of the most interesting moments in history, certainly in the last 80 years, because the entire paradigm where the United States had these allies and everything's going to go through the Security Council, we're going to try to make it to the U.N. and there's got to get agreements and all this stuff. That's just gone. I mean, it's just it's gone to the part where they don't even where you're kind of like, how are you what's going to happen inside Iran? They're like, that's not our concern. We hope that there's an overthrow of the government. [18:25] We're not going to necessarily commit to that. Well, they're also calling on the people to rise up, which is – [18:32] You know. [18:33] I mean, look at... [18:35] what they did with the protesters. [18:37] I mean, they killed thousands of people. And look at Iran and Venezuela. They don't have internal. The opposition is not united. There's not a united opposition with a united figure. I remember it was so interesting watching 79 with these protests against the Shah were going on. [18:51] The left and the Islamists made an alliance in Iran. It's something really interesting topic I'm only starting to explore right now. But they made an alliance. So they'd be holding up the Ayatollah Khomeini pictures in the street. They had their guy. And the left was like, look, we're just going to go with this guy. I think he was making promises to the left around allowing more liberalism. And then they came in and just consolidated into this really hard-line Islamist regime. But they had a guy. [19:19] We don't have a guy... [19:21] in Venezuela. We don't have a guy in Iran. I don't know if there's anybody in Cuba [19:26] Really, you know, the in the older regime under like the Biden, the open society people, the open society establishment, they had somebody for Venezuela, this Machado woman. But Trump gets up there and he just goes, yeah, she doesn't have enough support. So she's not with us gone. Like they recognize that they don't have there's nobody with opposition street cred that can come into power. So I think they and they know that they're not like unaware of that. So I think some of the like, oh, they should rise up in whatever.

[19:53] It's a little half-hearted. I don't know that they believe that that's going to happen. They're certainly not. They don't seem to be offering them material support. [20:00] Right. So it's just a symbolic gesture to talk about it. [20:05] Thank you. [20:05] Sounds like it. And I mean, in this kind of the... [20:09] this beautiful collapse of communism, which occurred so peacefully with the Berlin Wall and the guard eventually just sort of like it's just in the vibes. And the guards are just like, yeah, we're not guarding this wall anymore. And it's just over, you know, and it was just over. And it was like it was a kind of like a moral collapse. Yeah. [20:23] I'm not so sure that they're going to get that in Iran. It doesn't seem like it. It seems like they've been preparing for this for a long time. The Iranians? Yeah. Yeah. [20:32] They're dug in. Now it's the sun. And he's just part of the he represents the the IGRC, the the security forces. I mean, it's their guy. It's what you would do. It's rally around the flag. It's classic. [20:44] what happens. And so but you know, never you never know. I mean, these guys then might just negotiate more with the Trump administration wants. I think the Trump administration is like, we'll just keep [20:54] Killing your leaders until we get somebody in there that will make a deal with us. I think that's I think that's how Trump thinks about it. Really? Yeah. [21:01] That's my best guess. [21:03] You're smiling. Do you think this is... Because it's funny. Because it's funny because it's... [21:08] It's so... Joe, it's just like... [21:11] You just look at all the think tanks and all the white papers and the State Department and the planning and whatever, and it's just like – [21:17] Trump's just... [21:18] He's going to listen to Tucker. He's going to listen to Nia-Hu, and he's going to decide what to do. [21:22] This episode is brought to you by Visible. Folks, there's one thing nobody wants this season, and that's getting catfished. And it's not just dating profiles that are putting you at risk. It's also big wireless carriers. You know the type. Looks great at first. Promises a low price. But once you're locked in, surprise fees and an expensive bill that isn't what you were expecting. Your knight in shining armor? Visible Wireless.

[21:52] and hotspot for just $25 a month, taxes and fees included. Now that's a green flag. The best part, Visible is all digital, so you can switch as fast as you can swipe. Don't fall for the trap of getting catfished by wireless. Visit Visible.com to learn more and start loving your wireless carrier. Terms apply. See Visible.com for planned features and network management details. [22:21] Is that good? [22:23] I don't know if it's good. I mean, we don't know yet. I mean, I think part of it is, is it going to work? Part of you, is it moral? And you're like, well, but does it work to have better outcomes? I don't know. We're in a realm of absolute chaos. We're also in a realm where AI is going to be powering autonomous weapons, if not already. [22:42] I mean, that is going on. That is so interesting, this thing with Anthropic and the DoD and what's happening there. That is really interesting. So initially, Anthropic was hesitant to allow them to use autonomous weapons, right? I don't know the status of it, but you saw the head of OpenAI autonomous weapons. [22:59] She was the head of Autonomous Weapons, I think. Don't give me... [23:03] Exactly right, but she just quit. [23:05] like a couple of days ago, it was on X, and it was just like a huge story. So you have a bunch of... [23:10] You have... [23:12] a rift in between. Now, I think [23:15] Um... [23:16] Sam and Elon are both on board and want to keep working with the DoD, but it looks like Anthropic broke. And, you know, and then and then Hegseth was like, well, but then we're going to punish you for this. That's very consistent with a kind of nationalist vision, which is that which the Trump administration has, which is that your security strategy, your economic strategy, your border strategy, it's all a single industrial strategy. It's all a single thing.

[23:43] your trade strategy, it's all a single thing. And I think for Trump, it's just, you're either asserting power [23:48] and using your leverage and demanding more or you're engaged in managed decline. You're just giving up. [23:54] And part of me, I'm of mixed minds on it because on the one hand, I'm with the kind of – I kind of go, let's invest at home. We have all – we have Skid Row to clean up. [24:03] you know, we should be focused on that, not on trying to do regime change or bombing other countries or creating other problems. On the other hand, I think there's something right about. [24:12] defending the West, I mean, defending Western civilization, you know, defending our institutions, our norms, our liberal values. And and nobody's done that. [24:23] And we just had a guy in power that was that opened our borders that kind of gave a blank check to Ukraine. It seems like at a minimum with Trump, you have somebody that is. [24:34] taking responsibility in ways where Biden would be like, well, we're going to do what, you know, we're going to work with our allies. And it was just all kind of. [24:41] Like it was like it was all kind of going to be decided in this – [24:45] in this, you know, what Curtis Yarvin famously calls the cathedral, you know, just the single thing of the media and the think tanks and the academics. And and Trump was like, it's not working. And the working class of this country elected me to to show strength and to demand a better return on our investment in terms of protecting our allies for our people. So that part of it, I think, is really overdue and really necessary. An assertion of why the West is special, why we need to defend the West and.

[25:13] um... [25:15] is... [25:15] Bombing Iran and replacing the commandee with his son is what's happening in Venezuela. Is that the right approach to that? I don't know. But I think the system was – [25:25] was failing. I mean, the open society system, which was supposed to be this liberal, you know, you know, system of tolerance, it became intolerant, it became totalitarian, it created censorship industrial complex, they, they weaponize the intelligence communities, we, you know, started getting ourselves into conflicts that we that was not clear why we were in them, including Venezuela, I mean, sorry, including Ukraine. I mean, with Ukraine, it's like, [25:48] That war only continues because... [25:50] We continue to [25:51] arm it. Like if we stopped, if we just were like, [25:54] Let's just have the, you know, [25:57] just cut a deal wherever the border is right now. And you're just like, that's where it's going to stop. [26:01] then you can, I mean, I don't know, I'm not sure what's preventing that from Trump. I think he's annoyed with Putin. But, yeah, I mean, my view is like, [26:09] I don't see an interest in that war continuing. I don't know how it's in the interest of working class Americans or Americans. And I have the same questions about Iran and Venezuela and Cuba. But I think that is a totally different paradigm than the one that we had from 1945 to 2024. But the idea of tolerance for, you know, with the last administration, that seems just to be a narrative.

[26:39] the census, get more congressional seats, and then a path to citizenship where you'd have permanent voters. That's what it seems like. And then there's also a ton of Medicaid fraud that's wrapped up in that that we're now seeing. [26:51] Yeah, I think that's part of it. I mean, the Times did a piece on why Biden left the borders open. And it was – What was there? It was a funny piece. Like there was this – it was – [27:02] you know, part of it, he's so out of it, right? Like they were just, it was not, [27:06] clear, like there wasn't clear there was like a meeting where he was like, yeah, we're going to just do this thing. They kind of concluded that I think Cecilia Munoz, who's one of the more moderate advocates and was in the Obama administration, I think she said something like Biden just wanted to give the left a [27:20] just felt like he wanted to give the left what they wanted. [27:22] And that's what the Soros think tanks and the very progressive immigration groups have been advocating. They did the same thing on climate. [27:32] So it makes sense. I know Elon talks a lot about how, oh, it's about importing voters and whatnot. Maybe, but it's not even clear that that's a good strategy that's going to work. Why not? Well, because – [27:43] First of all, we don't know that Latinos... Why do we assume Latinos are all going to... [27:48] you know, vote for [27:49] Democrats. Well, if you've got them all on Medicaid and Social Security. [27:54] - Yeah. [27:54] The numbers there are it's actually more complicated. Europe is definitely the case that you have higher rates of crime and higher rates of social services among migrants. Here are Latino migrants traditionally, you know, you know, [28:08] really [28:09] You know, they do much better than than the mostly Muslim immigrants in Europe. And

[28:15] So I mean, I'm skeptical. I mean, the other thing, the other statistic that I learned from David Shore, who's like the one of the top Democrat pollsters when he was talking to Ezra Klein after the 2024 elections, he was like, if all eligible voters had voted, Trump would have won by three percentage points rather than one point five. So it's also so I always think it's kind of funny because the Republicans are always like trying to make it harder for people to vote. [28:37] But under that calculation anyway – and maybe it's just Trump. Maybe other Republicans won't go to do it. It's harder for people to vote. What do you mean? You mean mail-in voting? Yeah, just the whole effort to – But the problem is mail-in voting has always been a vector for fraud. Yeah. [28:53] It may be. I don't know how much of it there is. I've seen different things on it. That goes back like decades. People have been talking about mail-in voting just being too open to fraud. Well, but then – maybe. But then the question is, does it really benefit? I mean in other words, if David Shore is right, if everybody who could vote had voted, Trump would have won – [29:13] like, [29:14] Basically by twice the margin. Well, I don't know if that's necessarily true, but when I see laws like what California has where you're not allowed to show ID – [29:22] There's only... I mean, I've tried... [29:24] tried to find some sort of charitable way where that would make sense other than you want to open the door for fraud. There's nothing. [29:31] This narrative that they say, oh, poor people don't have Kamala Harris. They believe that, dude. They don't have a Xerox machine. No, but you ever see the thing – I think it was a guy – I don't know if he did it for free press. A guy was going around interviewing – [29:44] Well, first he interviewed liberals at like, I think UC Berkeley. And he was like, you know, do you think that you should have to have an ID to vote? And they were like, no, because black people don't have IDs. And like that's just hearing that on. No, I know. Of course. But they believe that. Yeah. I mean, but I don't know if you saw that. It's an incredible video because then he goes to like I think he goes to Harlem or he goes to like a black neighborhood and.

[30:03] New York, and he was just asking black people, it's like, do you have an ID on you? It was like everybody was like, yeah, like what's the matter with you? Well, it's also we just got done with three years of you need an ID to prove that you have been vaccinated. So you need to be able to have that to go to work, to get on a plane, to eat at a restaurant. It didn't make any sense. It was so immediately contradicting what had just gone down months earlier. It's just stupid. Well, yeah, that was about that was because the left wanted to control people's behavior. [30:33] And on voting, they the old I know, because I just want to talk to my progressive friends about it. What you know, and family and friends, it's. [30:40] It's very much like, no, we can't put barriers on the way of voting because that's what they did during Jim Crow. I mean, that's where it goes back to. ID is not a barrier. It's just an insurance that you're a citizen while you're voting. And then they say there's really not much. They say there's very little fraud. I'm just telling you what they say. I'm not saying I agree. Who is they, though? Progressives. Yeah. Do you believe that? That's horseshit. That's a horseshit. I think they believe it. [31:02] I'll put it that way. Yes, I do. I think they just say it because that's the thing that everybody says. I think it's a group thing. I mean, I think if you sit down with any rational person and no one's watching, you know, there's no cameras on them. And you ask them, does that make any sense? No one would say it makes any sense. [31:19] Most people in this country who are citizens have some form of ID or can get some form of ID. And it's entirely reasonable to ask people to prove that you are who you are if you're voting for the president of the United States. That seems pretty reasonable. I find it totally reasonable and I support it. I'm just saying that if you make it – I'm just saying you may – the Republicans may result in outcomes that are not the predictable ones that they think they'll get. Just because Trump – at least – and Trump is maybe a special case.

[31:49] out reluctant voters. He motivated people to vote. Because people were fed up with what had gone on in the last four years. And I think the open border was the biggest one. [31:59] I mean it was one of the biggest ones because people just felt hopeless. Like this is crazy. Like what you're doing, you're letting in what's equivalent at least – if you're just being charitable. [32:11] It's 10 million people. [32:13] It was huge. If you're just being conservative, it's 10 times Austin. You let 10 Austins in in four years of people who you have no idea who they are. [32:24] Yeah, and Americans were on board with closing the borders, and then when it came time to actually asking all the – getting those folks to leave that came in, all the support disappeared, right? Well, it's not asking them to leave. It's showing up at Home Depot and just rounding people up and raiding places and going to restaurants and pulling people out of their houses. I think people got very uncomfortable with the idea of militarized police wearing masks on the street. [32:54] thousand dollar signing bonus and then you find out that a giant percentage of them are latino which is kind of crazy you know like the two guys who shot that guy in minnesota they're both latino and yeah i mean that's what you get when you have completely untrained unprepared people well that's just like that the whole minnesota thing with alex preddy is a complete clusterfuck i still not have have not seen verification of whether or not

[33:19] The narrative that makes sense is true, but the narrative that makes sense was that there was an accidental discharge of his gun as they were pulling it away from him. And then that led to them thinking that maybe he still had the gun on him because you're in the chaos of arresting someone. Someone says he has a gun, a gun goes off, and then they shoot the guy. [33:39] I bet when they do the proper evaluation of it, they're going to find multiple mistakes. I'm sure. By the law enforcement. And then there was the thing with the woman who got shot where you have a guy who had almost been run over just a couple of weeks before and been dragged in his car. The guy who shot her had been dragged by another vehicle. I didn't see that. I think he got dragged like 300 feet to something crazy. [34:04] So when a car is coming at him, you could imagine this guy's got some PTSD from that and – [34:10] He should not have been – he should not have been – No. And also Alex Freddie – He shouldn't have said that fucking bitch like after he shoots her in the face too. That's crazy too. Yeah. I mean the reaction – [34:21] Just the heartlessness of the reaction to the killings was terrible, including by the administration. That's probably why Kristi Noem ended up having to go. But then on the other side – [34:30] These protests are organized. They're organized and they're paid for, which is also something that people need to understand. These are not organic protests. It's not organic that it just happened to be taking place in the very same place where you found hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud. Right? This is one of the clearest, most obvious distractions you've ever seen in the public arena where you have these people who are being paid to protest.

[35:00] protest. They give them signs. They're organizing it. They have signal groups. They're doxing all these different ice workers. They find out what their license plates numbers are. They find out where they're staying. They go to the hotel. The cops, the local cops are being told to stand down. [35:18] convergence of all these factors that lead to chaos. And, you know, Mike Benz was talking about it. It was essentially saying it's a mathematical thing and that if you have these things play out, you're going to have a certain amount. It was Mike Benz, right? It was saying that it was a certain amount of people that are you're going to have incidences. You're just playing it out over the numbers. Certain amount of these protests, you have organized protests, you have untrained [35:48] support for people screaming in the streets. Someone gets shot, boom, and then it moves the needle. And this is calculated. Yes. They want this to happen. They want it to happen this way because then this kills all the support for people that, you know, we're kind of on the fence whether or not I should be deporting all illegals. [36:08] Excuse me. It should... [36:09] Excuse me. Well, they should just go after violent criminals. And then there's these weird narratives like, oh, only 14 percent are violent criminals that have been arrested. He was 60 percent of criminals. Sixty percent of the people plus were criminals. And like what what by what definition violent criminals like what he like.

[36:33] Is it okay if they just come in here and rip people off? Are you fine with that? It's just like the violent ones we need to get rid of? [36:41] I think they didn't. Yeah, they did. They did a fairly poor job of it. Like, why were they focused on on Minneapolis? I think most people don't understand how radical the left in Minneapolis is because you need a Midwestern place. But it's actually got a long radical left tradition. Yeah. And as you were saying, I mean, Alex pretty. He should have been arrested several days before when he had a gun on him and got into an altercation with police. They should have arrested him then. And then they could have. [37:06] The judge could have done a lot of different things, but they could have taken away his gun. They could have put a restraining order on him. [37:11] So the next time he showed up and people would know to look for him, then he would have been kept out of the area. This episode is brought to you by the farmer's dog. Here's a fun fact. Research shows that dogs who maintain a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer on average than dogs who are overweight. Isn't that wild and also kind of obvious at the same time? So why is feeding vague scoops of ultra-processed kibble still the status quo for most dog owners? [37:41] I know. [37:42] I buy one, the Farmer's Dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it. They eat it up quick. It smells good to them. It smells good to me. It's human-grade food. The Farmer's Dog makes fresh food for dogs, and my dogs love it. Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier

[38:12] best friends something every dog owner wants the answer to that is yes obviously so try the farmer's dog today and get 50 off your first box of fresh healthy food [38:25] Plus, get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com slash rogan. This offer is for new customers only. This episode is brought to you by Traeger Grills. If you enjoy food, and I mean really good food, Traeger is a game changer. This isn't just a grill. It's the ultimate way to cook outdoors, delivering unbeatable wood-fired flavor thanks to the all-natural hardwood pellets that fuel everything you grill, smoke, or bake. [38:55] Just wood and fire and flavor. And what's truly wild is how easy it is. Just set the temp, load the grill, and let Traeger handle the rest. Grilled steaks, smoked ribs, even baked pizza, all on one grill. If you're into fire, flavor, and doing things right, check out Traeger Grills. [39:15] Do you know the story about the gun that he was carrying? No. Okay, so he's carrying a gun called a SIG P320, which is notorious for accidental discharges. Not mean there's lawsuits all over the place. There's videos of cops in precincts bending over to pick something up, and the gun goes off in his holster. There's a ton of these. So I don't know if this is completely accurate because this is obviously the fog of chaos of these type of altercations and situations.

[39:45] Thank you. [39:45] There's a video that many people have reviewed, and it's their conclusion that if you watch the video, when one of the ICE officers removes his gun, even though he does not have his finger on the trigger, has his hand on the gun and his fingers on the slide, as he's moving off, it appears the gun goes off. Now, they've zoomed in on it and shown that it does look like the gun's going off, and it does correspond with the sound of a gunshot. [40:15] You hear a gunshot in the video. Yes, but I don't know if it's legitimate. It's hard to know. But if it was any other gun, like say if it was a Glock, I would say that doesn't make any sense. His finger's not on the trigger. It's not going to go off. But that gun is notorious for going off. There's a guy online that he shows a video where he takes the gun and he manipulates the slide and it goes off. [40:38] And it goes off without nothing touching the trigger. No one's pulling on it. It's just if you have – the other problem is people alter guns. So the issue with the SIG was – [40:51] Thank you. [40:52] They – [40:53] They had – I believe up to 2017, they had a lighter trigger. And this lighter trigger, if the gun was dropped or if something happened to it, it was going off. And they determined it's – the gun does not have an internal safety like some other guns do. I'm not an expert, so I don't know exactly what the trigger mechanism is. But my understanding is that the trigger mechanism is different than their other guns. Like they have another gun that's notoriously reliable. It's a SIG P365.

[41:23] going to go off it's not known for accidental discharge but the 320 is known and there's tons of videos of people demonstrating this online there's a video where they're on a range and a gun goes off in a guy's holster and the range instructor says what the fuck just happened and this guy he points to this you know the the gun that went off and he said is that a sig and he [41:53] model. And it just happened to be the one particular model that Alex Preddy was carrying, which is fucking crazy. Well, his behavior was... [42:01] really reckless. It's really hard for people to hold two ideas in their mind at the same time. Like, I... [42:08] Mess that up. Right. Clearly. Yeah. [42:10] And Alex Preddy, I mean, we see the earlier video, you know, where he kicks out the taillight of the ICE vehicle. Right. And he's got a gun in the waistband of his jacket. It's hidden by the jacket. He gets into this altercation with the police. I mean, when I posted about it, I didn't say this, but a lot of the responses were suicide by cop. People were like suicide by cop. I mean, and I'm not making that claim, but I mean, his behavior was... [42:33] I mean, the recklessness of the gun choice mirrors the recklessness of his behavior in those instances. And I heard people being like, oh, well, he was just defending that poor woman. There was a police officer engaged in an arrest of a person, and Alex Pretty intervened in that. I mean, I think you can mess around about it. It was a little – [42:50] I don't know if it was an arrest. The police officer shoved this woman.

[42:55] Yeah, he was in an altercation with somebody. In other words, people go, oh, you've got to put yourself in. What do you think is going on here? That he should put himself in between that? No. The way the ICE officer, it wasn't a police officer, right? It's an ICE officer. Do you call them police? The way the ICE officer reacted to the woman, that bothered me. He just shoved this lady, stepped forward and fully shoved her. That's when Alex Prady gets involved. And then pepper spray comes out. [43:25] And Alex pretty should have absolutely filmed that. [43:28] Should have filmed the whole thing. That's exactly what you should have done. Well, other people were filming it. It was clear there's cameras all over the place. But don't – Multiple angles. Yeah. But it's like – [43:38] I just don't think that's appropriate behavior. [43:41] That's not the tradition of like... [43:43] I mean, I think there's a nonviolent left wing tradition that's actually quite beautiful and spiritual. I agree. Thoreau and Gandhi and King. [43:52] That's not what was going on in Minneapolis. That's not at all what's going on. This is a part of the problem with these things being organized, right? Organized, paid protests, and also people being radicalized by narratives. Then, of course, very different than what was going on with the civil rights movement, you have social media. So people are radically pushed in one direction or another, and it's not clear whether or not that's organic.

[44:22] Is this bot farms that are pushing things in one direction or another? Is it – I mean there's a lot of people that I cautiously watch their posts on X where I know that they're AI. I know it's AI. I can just tell by the way they write. It's awful now. There's so much AI slop on X right now. It's bad. It's weird. Yeah. It's weird. Yeah. It's weird. Yeah. [44:43] It does muddy the water and it does fuck with discourse, but it also radicalizes people. One way or the radicalizes people towards the right, radicalizes people towards the left. It's not good. And I think this guy, whatever his mental health struggles were, they appeared to exist. It seems like he was a troubled guy already. So a thing comes along that defines them, a cause that they're going to stand up for and fight for because their life's probably a fucking mess. [45:13] a mess and they look at this they look at it like this is black and white binary situation for sure good guys and bad guys and let's fuck all these fascists and he's kicking taillights and you know getting involved in pushing matches with ice agents it's like that's crazy like all that stuff can should and can get you arrested yeah i mean i think on the organized issue remember like the civil rights movement was really well organized and in terms it was like actually weren't being [45:43] job. There are people in America right now that are unemployed, that are paid protesters for a living. [45:50] Oh. [45:50] I mean, that's the entire, like, left-wing NGO sector is basically that. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's what we saw. I see the level of San Francisco and for homelessness. They just go and you work at a government-funded or Soros-funded NGO and then you do –

[46:04] all that civil disobedience stuff on your free time. And, but I was, I just think, I think that you're, you're right. You were right when you're saying like, cause I think it's the problem is not the organization. The problem is that the organization in Minneapolis had a goal for, [46:16] of causing exactly what occurred. The organization around the civil rights movement [46:21] was to desegregate soda counters. Yes. And so one of them was about actually, I mean, the other thing is that brought, pull back a little bit further, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement was about affirming our liberal democratic Western civilization. Black people wanted to be a part of it. This stuff where you're like, we want to open the border and defund the police and basically start attacking all of these institutions of liberal democratic civilization, that's different. [46:51] It's what Gadsad, he defines it best as suicidal empathy. [46:57] I don't agree with Gad on that. No? You don't think it's suicidal empathy? I don't think it's either suicidal or empathic because empathy is like fundamentally – Well, he implies that to a lot of progressive ideas, not just the immigration thing. I don't think he necessarily – I think it was actually long before the immigration thing that he was talking about, suicidal empathy. The idea being that you need the rule of law to have a safe and peaceful society. Yes, that part's true. You do. That part's true. [47:27] And when you're taking criminals and just releasing them from jail and you have no cash bail and you're doing all these things –

[47:34] If you want to put on the fucking tinfoil hat, you would do that because you want chaos, because you want chaos so you can have more rules and tighten down on people and have more control over the civilization. [47:48] Like... [47:49] It's not empathic to... [47:52] allow more violent crime. Like, I don't think that's empathy towards victims. So I don't think I wouldn't call it empathy. And not only that, but like, [47:59] When you look at who these folks are, and I spent a lot of time looking at them and was one of them, they hate Western civilization. They hate the United States of America. They hate capitalism. Like it's an anti-civilization thing that's motivating it. And that's not to say that like MSNBC watchers don't feel, oh, I feel bad for that person. But I mean I always – it's like – [48:19] like the people I hear complain about ICE they don't know [48:23] any illegal immigrants. They've never talked to them other than maybe their server or that, you know, but they don't even really talk to their gardeners or their or their, you know, their maids. It's like the idea that they empathy implies a deep understanding of. [48:38] of someone's situation. And so I think it's a... [48:42] misdescription of empathy. I think in some ways it's more quite the opposite of that, that they're actually not showing empathy for all the people that are hurt by their policies, whether it's open borders or enabling addiction or euthanizing poor and mentally ill people in Canada or transing kids. I don't think that those things are empathic. And the person that's doing doing them, I don't think is suicidal. If anything, they're actually quite suicidal.

[49:06] full of themselves and quite arrogant about what they're doing. I mean, I use the word pathological altruism [49:13] in San Francisco, and I say it's close to Monkhausen syndrome by proxy. Maybe it is Monkhausen syndrome by proxy, but I don't think it's – I worry about – [49:23] I worry about affirming because I think that's how progressives go. They go, oh, well, if the homeless are worse off, that's just because we care so much. I just don't think that's the case. Well, the homeless thing is nuts because the homeless thing is just a scam, and we know that. [49:37] Basically because of California. Like California, what's happened with the whole homeless budget is so insane and that they vetoed audits of these budgets. There's been $24 billion spent. No one knows where it went. There's no accountability. No. [49:54] And then the homeless situation increases. [49:57] Well, that's why. I mean, remember, it's like it's funny, like my students just did a paper. We have something we've been working on to like the Canadian euthanasia program. Yeah. And it's like every year the numbers just keep going up and up. And remind me of when you interview homeless service providers in San Francisco, they'll be like, yeah, no, we're doing an amazing job. Every year we serve more and more people. It's like where you have you have all the you have the wrong incentives. [50:19] You're trying to – you have an incentive to serve – to – [50:22] You have incentive to create homelessness, and that's what they've done. Well, if you get more money, if you have more homeless, your incentive is now not to eliminate homelessness because that's your job. Right. That's how you make all your money. When I first was alerted to that, I was like, I can't believe this is real. Like when you find out the amount of money that's involved in homelessness –

[50:41] Like that... [50:43] They spent $24 billion. Okay, where did that go? [50:47] And then there's no accountability? Okay. There's no fraud? You're saying there's no fraud? [50:51] Zero. Well, I wish there was fraud. I mean, somebody was sort of like, can we expose, you know, like Nick Shirley exposed the daycare is not doing anything in Minnesota. I was like, I wish the homeless. [51:01] service providers weren't doing anything. If they were stealing the money, then there'd be a lot less homelessness. [51:07] Well, so you think they're actually using the money to create homelessness? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, think about like – so San Francisco was like up between $100,000 and $120,000 a year per homeless person. I think LA had a bargain of something more like $25,000. That's just San Francisco. That doesn't count the $24,000. [51:26] billion that California gave. So that money is going to single resident occupancy hotel owners. It's going to nonprofit service providers or just bringing food and alcohol and drug paraphernalia to make it easier for people to do drugs and overdose and live in tents on the street. It's very expensive to kill that many people that way. [51:50] That's what San Francisco has proven. Right, but it's really about the amount of people where that's their industry. There is an industry in taking care of the homeless situation and addressing the homeless situation. And, you know, Koleon Noir, when he was on the podcast, he was explaining to me that he went to San Francisco. And he was like, why is it so bad up here? Do they need money? He's like, no, no, no. This guy was a lawyer. He's a lawyer as well. I was explaining it to him.

[52:20] the homeless situation and some of them are making a quarter million dollars a year and more, which is just nuts. And then it's not getting better. It's only getting worse. And yet they still keep getting that money. So it's like there's zero incentive to make it better. There's only an incentive to make it worse. And then we have no accountability. So there's no auditing of the money. [52:41] $24 billion is a lot of fucking money. So who's getting greased up? Where's that money going? Mostly it's into the temporary, what they call it permanent. It's a propaganda word. It's a permanent supportive housing. It's neither permanent nor supportive. It's often warehousing attics where they die. I mean we know that they die at very high levels in those little crummy single-resident occupancy rooms. [53:11] hotels, converting them, but they don't really – there's no – I mean, all that money should have gone into a centralized addiction and psychiatric care system. [53:19] Cal Sake is what it should have been. And instead it's just – [53:23] It's just kind of, yeah, it's just... [53:25] Basically incentivizing people to live on the streets and use hard drugs and die in overdose. It's just so crazy. I mean if you wanted to make it better, you would incentivize them and pay them based on the amount of people that are no longer homeless. Right. [53:38] But they don't do that. But then the problem with that is, well, you're eventually going to fix it all, and then your business is going to go away. Right. [53:43] And that's all happening – I think it's all happening unconsciously. Like there's no room – there's no like secret room where they're rubbing their hands and being like, oh, we're going to make a lot of money this way. It's just – when you interview them, it's a very basic view. It's just these people are victims. They're victims of white supremacy and capitalism and to victims everything should be given and nothing required.

[54:13] I think your incentive is to keep this party going. Well, sure, but they think it's good. I mean they go – this shows how good we're doing that we got a bigger budget this year and that's how they rationalize it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's a sign of a very sick society, hence the title of your book, San Francisco – Sicko. [54:35] which is a great title. I mean, it's a sick place. And it was one of my favorite cities. It was an amazing city. I filmed my Netflix special there in 2016. So in just the amount of time in 10 years, it's completely fallen apart. When I was there in 2016, it was great. With the I mean, there was always a lot of homeless people there. But you have that in any liberal city. But it was never an epidemic. It was never like tents everywhere and shit on [55:05] It was a liberal city, a progressive liberal city, but it was cool. There was a lot of outdoor music. It was fun. It was a great place to go to restaurants and people walked around. It was a great city filled with intelligent, interesting, open-minded people. Man, I lived there when I was a little kid. I was there during the Vietnam War from age 7 to 11. I lived in San Francisco. It's a little bit better now. They've had a new mayor. Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I want to acknowledge – I can't lie about it. [55:35] I agree, I interview a lot of people still about what's going on. [55:39] It's still there. Did you see what happened with the mayor? [55:42] With his security guard? Yeah. Got pulled down? Yeah. First of all, security guard. He needs to learn some fucking jujitsu. Yeah.

[55:48] The way he let that guy grab him, he didn't pummel. He didn't do anything. It looked like he had no understanding of what to do when that guy grabbed his body. [55:56] How is he a security guard? That's crazy. How can you be a security for the mayor if you literally don't know what to do in a clinch? I thought he looked like he didn't really see the guy as a threat or something. Maybe he thought he was just a crazy homeless guy or something. Even if I didn't see a guy as a threat, if a guy grabs me like that, I'm not going to let him get that position on me. That's crazy. Apparently he cut his back of his head. He banged him on the ground. He body slammed him onto the fucking concrete. Kind of a metaphor for the whole situation. The mayor just walks away. [56:26] nothing like he walked away not here and run see though cuz I saw that video and I couldn't tell if the mayor actually saw what was happening one hundred like he was going he was looking that way and he was he was here when they started physically was struggling with each other [56:41] And then when they're struggling with each other, he walks off. And then the guy gets body slammed. It was the weirdest video to watch. Yeah, because they both seem so nonchalant. Yeah, as a metaphor for the city. It's a different angle. The mayor actually is running off to get help. Oh, he is. Running off? Yeah, let me refresh this real quick. Let me see it.

[57:01] So there's the merit there. Okay. Okay. [57:03] He pushes this guy here in a second. The mayor sort of, as soon as he gets to the sidewalk, he takes off. So why are they hanging out with this guy in the first place? That looks like they're in Canada right there. Oh, so the security guard started it, and he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. [57:18] And there's them over here. Okay. Okay. [57:20] Oh, look at his shitty technique. Oh, this is a much better video. And the other guy's a lot stronger than him. So the mayor... [57:26] He walks off. Hold on. He starts running right. He seems relaxed. [57:30] Okay. [57:31] He did start walking slowly and then starts – but that – He's not going to get help. [57:36] That guy started it all. [57:39] He pushed that guy. If you're a security guy, the last thing you want to do when there's one of you and two of those other guys is deal with a situation that way where you push a guy. [57:50] I have to say, as Sancho said, I'm always surprised when I see them do that. That was the same thing that happened with the Preddie. [57:56] We were just talking about it. Don't you think this guy's probably armed, too? [58:00] I mean... [58:02] But also... [58:03] He shouldn't have pushed that guy that way. I mean, the whole thing is fucking stupid. Look at the chaos. There's somebody else just running around, another homeless person or something. Yeah. Yeah. [58:12] The other guy's probably talking shit. I bet that guy's funny. I bet he's the guy with a big coat on. [58:19] I mean, I don't... For the life of me, none of it makes sense. Right. [58:24] None of it makes sense. The mayor walking off casually and then eventually running. It doesn't make sense. The security guy just walked up to those guys and pushed him. When your details to take care of the mayor, you should be escorting him around that and getting him away from any potential trouble. Like the brazenness of just walking up and pushing that guy. Well, you don't know how to fight at all. It's very clear when you watch the way they grapple with each other. He doesn't know what he's doing.

[58:54] is coming fast. There's been so many tax law changes this year, which means you're going to need an expert who has your back. You're in luck. TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. Walk into their tech-enabled stores and meet face-to-face with a TurboTax full-service expert who will get your best outcome. [59:17] Your expert works to get you every dollar you deserve while updating you as you go about your day. Head to TurboTax.com to find a store near you. Seems like we're having a lot of security problems in our society right now. It's wild, right? I can't believe the pushing. I mean, that's not even the pretty thing. Pushing, is that like a... [59:38] Is that like an important law enforcement technique? I mean, what is that? Well, not only that, he pushed a small woman. [59:44] The ice guy just completely just full on shoves this small woman. Which means he was emotionally out of control first, right? It means that he was angry. He was angry. These guys are not like special forces. No, they're not well trained. These guys are the seven weeks, seven weeks. And a lot of them are financially incentivized because like if you get $50,000 to like if you're in debt and then you could take this job on when they get the $50,000, how long do they have to stay on the job for to have that money? [1:00:14] to have that signing bonus? Or is it one of those things where you get the $50,000 as a signing bonus, but you pay it like a record deal type deal where it's not really your money. You have to make it up later. I imagine. But still, if you can get $50,000, there's a lot of people that'll take that job. Yeah.

[1:00:31] They're just... [1:00:34] Yeah, it was just a bunch of bad choices made by the Trump administration on that one. Someone's read comments saying they have no personal experience, but they've heard that it's 50K over four years if you're in good standing at the end of those four years. Oh, so you only get it after four years. But that might not – Right. Right. But for some people that have no job opportunities and nothing on the horizon, that $50,000 looks like – [1:00:58] Look, it's an extra 25K a year or an extra, you know, 25K for four years, for 50 for four years. Another person says that's incorrect. It's broken in 10 payments once at 90 days, then once every year for four more years. Anyway, it's broken. But either way, it's $50,000 that you would not have been able to make ordinarily. I mean, we had police shortages before 2020. We had a bunch of police shortages after that, mostly by police officers who were just, [1:01:25] felt mistreated by the society and by their local mayors who said that they were evil. Well, didn't a lot of cops resign when Donnie got elected? Oh, I'm sure. And then a COVID drove and then they a bunch of police officers driven out during COVID. So there was already our security forces have been, you know, and they were just people underestimate how important it is to feel like important in your job and respected. And it's not just about the money because they would be offering more money.

[1:01:55] Well, not just at a job where your life is on the line. Yeah, your life is already on the line, and then you're mistreated by the wider society, which actually creates additional risks, as this chaos in Minneapolis shows. So, yeah, it's just people want to believe that they're doing something – [1:02:12] That is appreciated by the community. And so when the community decides that they're against policing, your civilization is pretty far gone. Right, but there's a difference between policing and this ICE thing. The ICE thing is a different thing, right? They're looking at it differently. It's not like you're watching a violent altercation take place. The police show up and people are spitting on them. [1:02:29] Like you're trying to break up a violent crime. This is different. They're looking at it like in the progressive narrative is like no one's illegal on stolen land and we need to have open borders and illegals or immigrants rather are the foundation of this country. And you hear all that, those narratives. The president and the administration, they wanted to pick a fight, obviously, with this left wing, with activists in this left wing city. They thought it would redound to their benefit to show how crazy the left was and it backfired on them. [1:02:59] do something about the amount of illegal fraud that was just recently exposed in Minneapolis. But I don't know that that's – but you wouldn't do it with ICE raids though. I mean – Well, it's illegal immigrants. If you have illegal immigrants that are responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud – [1:03:15] And, you know, at least some of them are illegal. It seems rational that you would send ICE in to find out who's illegal and who's not and put a stop to some of it. And there's also this nationwide focus on this one place because of the Nick Shirley videos. Yeah. Yeah. Though I think that the motivate my understanding is that the motivation was to motivate people that are here illegally to self-deport. And so that that's the main part of the strategy is the show of force, because, of course, it's they wanted the publicity.

[1:03:45] in self-deport. They claim... [1:03:47] that at one point, [1:03:48] I think three million people self-deported or at one point four and the other 400,000 or 600,000 deported through the normal channels. And apparently they're just limited to how many people they can actually deport through the normal channels. But they can get people can self-deport. They can just go. Right. And because, of course, there's this thing called E-Verify where you just have the employers have to prove that everybody you're employing is here legally. [1:04:10] And they don't want to do that. The Trump administration doesn't want to do that because they'll upset, in particular, like the agricultural lobby. Yeah. But others who depend on construction. Construction. [1:04:18] who depend on – so it's a funny – [1:04:21] It's not great. I don't know. I'm not saying that there's that I have the perfect answer to the other one. But obviously, like politically, the president doesn't feel like they can do e-verify and maintain support from the business community for his political agenda. So you end up but you end up with a kind of underclass that's here illegally, but that's protected because they're working in a sector that the president and the administration wants to protect. But then you're also self-deporting people. I'm not sure exactly how they're thinking about it. [1:04:51] appears to be what the heart of their goal is. Well, this was always what a lot of people on the left back in the day would say that illegal immigrants was this was like a Koch brothers thing. This was like a right wing thing that they wanted this for for exactly what you just described and that this is not a left wing progressive idea. And then what it would do is would lower the wages for the lower class, the middle class of this country. And it would be bad for the citizens.

[1:05:21] I don't want unchecked illegal immigration. Unchecked illegal immigration would just be for the right because they're the ones who own these massive corporations that are profiting off of illegal labor. They don't have to pay them benefits. They don't have to pay them health care. Any of the things that are, you know. [1:05:35] that cost money. [1:05:37] Yeah, I mean, the on the left was always balancing a sort of open society. You know, they wanted the Soros Foundation always wanted to have a free movement of people to that was sort of their view of why the part why the Holocaust occurred is that you couldn't move, you know, or at least the persecutions, you couldn't move people as easily. But then you had the working class, you know, who were negatively affected by bringing in migrants who would push down wages, and unions who are a big part of the Democratic Party. So the Democrats were sort of [1:06:04] divided on it for a while, but they managed it. And Hillary and Obama would sort of, if you look at when they were competing in 2008, they were very carefully, like there was a whole thing around like driver's licenses, whether, you know, [1:06:15] She would give them or not. And Obama accused Hillary of of kind of playing both sides of it. You know, typical thing. But they also both spoke out strongly against mass migration. [1:06:28] Fast forward much more than that. It was at 16 years into today, and now you've got a much more working class Republican Party who's unified around keeping the borders closed and restricting the supply of low income, unskilled workers because – [1:06:42] I mean, it's just I mean, it's it was really weird to watch people that are always defending supply and demand and economics and economic policy then say, oh, no, but having open borders and having all these working class people come in.

[1:06:53] is going to have no impact on wages when obviously it would. [1:06:57] And I think that's now [1:06:58] That's also now gone. I think that's another thing that's just Trump has just changed. I don't think you're going to see Democrats going back to advocating that kind of mass migration again. Right. But you could see a world where they would push back against what has happened, what they would say, the barbaric nature of some of these ice raids. And then saying from this filter, ice water, if you'd like. [1:07:21] You don't have to not have your bottle. We don't care. Oh, I think it's in the shot. No, it doesn't matter. We don't care. It doesn't matter. [1:07:29] um... [1:07:30] But you could see how they could go back to a much looser border policy and get back to what they're – because it wasn't – I think they won't. I think they won't. Really? I think the closed border – [1:07:40] I mean, I think that the sweet spot of public opinion is like people really want to close. I think it was just really... [1:07:45] But I don't think public opinion supported an open border, even on the left. No. [1:07:50] No. During those last four years, but yet they did it anyway. Right. And they were moving people to blue states. [1:07:56] They were moving people to swing states. [1:07:58] They were flying people in, busing people. They were doing it on purpose. Isn't that also because the blue state governors were more welcoming of them? There's a little bit of that, but there was also the idea that you're going to juice up the congressional seats because you're going to change the census. Maybe, although California lost seats, right? Well, because California has done such a fucking terrible job of governing their state. It's so – that place is so crazy. Like every time there's some new law that they're trying to push through, some new bill.

[1:08:28] Well, they drove the billionaires out, right? Yeah. I mean, I know they drove out. David Sachs came to Austin. I think Mark Zuckerberg moved to Florida. I heard rumors of Steven Spielberg. I don't know if that's I don't want to spread disinformation. I don't want to spread misinformation, but I heard he was leaving. But yeah, it's called the thing that drives me the most nuts is when these progressive talking heads saying they don't want to pay their fair share. [1:08:48] With the amount of waste and fraud, why would you? You don't think there should be some accountability to how much fucking waste and fraud that has been clearly demonstrated? The solution is just give more money. Oh, and they can do it because they have it. So what? You just give more money and now it's $30 billion goes to homeless with no accountability? [1:09:12] Like, what are you what are you saying? Like, where do you think this money is going to go where it's actually going to help people and affect things in a positive way? There's been no indication that that's the case, that the real problem is they just haven't had enough money from the billionaires. That's fucking ludicrous. That idea is ludicrous. It's such a lazy, intellectually lazy way of framing this whole discussion. [1:09:34] That's saying, oh, they don't want to pay their fair share. Fuck you. That's not what's going on here. What's going on here, you have a completely incompetent government that's absolutely corrupt, and they want more money. Oh, yeah. [1:09:45] Gas is like $8 a gallon almost now. That's bananas. They were going to shut down. I mean, the refiners are being shut down. That initiative, the Billionaires Tax, is an SEIU initiative, so meaning it's the union that covers health care workers like nurses. They're very radical, very radical left, and the money is to provide Medicaid for undocumented immigrants. That's what they want it for, right? So that's the whole thing.

[1:10:15] people [1:10:16] worry about democracy. You get all this very democratic, but you get these powerful unions and they're able to change the laws like that. I mean, it's called the curly effect because there was a Boston mayor named curly who made everything so bad for his political opponents that they left. Uh, [1:10:30] But the consequence was that he ended up gaining more power. So all of when everybody moves, you know, when all the like moderate Democrats move to Austin or Miami or Denver or wherever. [1:10:40] California just ends up [1:10:42] locked in more to a progressive agenda. That's the problem. [1:10:45] Well, I think the idea is that it's so good there that most people are just going to tolerate – [1:10:51] Whatever new bullshit they throw your way. 100 percent. And also, I mean, it seems like the tech community is now backing the San Jose mayor who's running, who's a very – he's a Democrat, very moderate. But he's been critical of Gavin. Running for governor? Yeah. Matt Mahan. So keep your eyes on him. I mean he's not – [1:11:10] He's not maybe the most exciting guy, but he's definitely running as a moderate. That might be good. I think he's giving some money. It seems like exciting people are a fucking problem. I know. He might be enough. I don't know. It's hard to say, but it does look like – because, I mean, look, there's plenty of – [1:11:24] The tech community only woke up [1:11:27] politically in 2024. That's how long it took. And it really took [1:11:31] Things getting so bad where they were telling Marc Andreessen, as he said to you on your show, that they were shutting off whole parts of A.I. The Biden administration was openly threatening A.I. and this huge new and, you know, there's concerns. I'm not saying that there's not. But I think that I think at some point the tech community, which had been.

[1:11:47] You know, either leaning Democrat, you know, for a long time since the Obama era, you know, or wanted to stay out of politics because they just want to focus on their machines and their investments. They don't really want to be involved in politics, but they woke up in 2024. And so hopefully. [1:12:02] Because it's not – I mean when you see what Soros has done and you really appreciate the power that one billionaire can have, you kind of go, why is there nothing like that on the other side? Why is it so dominated by Soros? And so I hope that that's starting to happen. But yeah, when you start to chase out the billionaires and the billionaires just give up on California – [1:12:20] then it's got to be whoever's remaining to try to put the money behind the guy that can get some change there. [1:12:28] I don't see a pathway. [1:12:30] where California anytime soon turns around. [1:12:33] I don't see how it could. [1:12:35] I feel like the momentum has shifted so far in a terrible direction, and the solutions are always taxed more. [1:12:44] Take more money from people. [1:12:46] You see of this completely corrupt – [1:12:49] irresponsible, fraud-ridden, wasteful government that wants more of your money. And the solution is if we take more money, we're going to make things better, which is just- [1:13:00] insanity. This episode is brought to you by Gold Belly. Gold Belly will ship you the most insane dude foods from all across the country. You gotta try the ribs from Terry Blacks in Austin. Massive, juicy beef ribs that take a day to cook, and you just... [1:13:15] sink your teeth into them, Goldbelly will ship them to you anywhere.

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[1:15:14] fire department should have done that didn't happen. And ultimately, you know, the mayor is the one that [1:15:19] chooses the fire chief and fires the fire chief. And the mayor was warned. They were warned. And she goes to fly to Ghana for this little junket presidential inauguration, palling around when she should have been in L.A. at a command headquarters. And, you know, and if she wasn't, then Gavin should have been. You know, Schwarzenegger, towards the end of his administration, they would just mobilize planes full of water, you know, huge cargo planes full of water before there were fires just to start to circulate, just to get ready to put stuff out. [1:15:49] this idea promoted that it was inevitable that the fires that, oh, eventually it's just no, like it's absurd. Like, of course, you can protect it with adequate fire. Oh, the pipes weren't big enough. No, like maintain your reservoirs, have water in them. Even the one that it was like was like not repaired yet, which should have been repaired, they could have kept. [1:16:09] They could have air gapped the pipe so that it didn't contaminate the water supply, but left it for firefighting. They didn't do that. They didn't station the engines where they needed to station them. Nobody was on fire. [1:16:18] You know, it's like... [1:16:19] they're not taking responsibility. Like they weren't taking responsibility for it. So anyway, to the point being, get a new governor, you get a better mayor of LA, you've got a guy in San Francisco now who I think has still has a lot of potential. I mean, this latest video, you know, showing the chaos there. But you with that, I think that's not him, though. Yeah, it's not his fault. His, you know, the criticism of him is he walked away too casually. Yeah, no big deal. Yeah. So I mean, I think there is a there is a way for California to come out and

[1:16:46] My view is like, look, you've got – it's on the tech. [1:16:49] billionaires. They, you know, and I know some of them have left and obviously they don't need, but there's still a lot of billionaire rich guys in California that are perfectly capable of financing an alternative effort. The vote, you know, 75 percent of San Francisco voters are, [1:17:04] want to arrest people [1:17:06] using fentanyl in public. They want to arrest them. Okay, that sounds so, that's so taboo. And progressive, that's 75% of San Francisco voters. So the voters are not [1:17:16] They're not the radical left. Some ways they're radicalized in their hatred of Trump and the Trump derangement syndrome. But I mean, everyone like Caruso and Mahan and anybody else there will all just – [1:17:27] be able to say they hate Trump like everybody else. Well, I think they've seen the consequences of these policies. Oh, yeah. People are really... [1:17:34] It's not like anything has changed that significantly. They will – in fact, when I interview people in San Francisco, they're a little reluctant to admit that it's gotten better because I think they don't want to take any pressure off the politicians. So, I mean, I do think it's rescuable, but it's hard. When you say it's gotten better, like how so? Mostly the encampments are being broken up. Now, you see a little – you see more of that sort of thing that we just saw in the video where there's like – [1:17:59] I call them like a little more like a nest. You know, there's just a little home. So it's not an entire block. Big encampments like, yeah, the whole block. Not like Skid Row. That's in Oakland. Yeah. That's in Skid Row. Oh, Oakland's nuts. Oakland is – Oakland might not be savable. They had a chance to save themselves and they ended up voting for the wrong person for mayor and it's just as bad as ever. So – but I think if you get San Francisco, LA and a new governor in place, I think you've got –

[1:18:23] the makings to save it. Have you seen this video? This guy does this description of what's going on in Oakland and then drives across the county line into the next place. And it's immediately all done. [1:18:34] And you just see what the difference between two different forms of government. [1:18:38] and how it works. [1:18:39] I didn't see that one, but I saw the one between Venice and Santa Monica. Yeah. I was there when Venice and Santa Monica was somewhere like, you're like, why aren't there any tents there? It's like, that's Santa Monica. Yeah. It's different. Well, there's still some. Santa Monica got bad, too. But they cleaned it up a little bit better. Yeah. But Venice is bananas. It's just. But Venice is nothing compared to Skid Row. Skid Row is 50 blocks. Venice is OK now. Is it? Venice is OK now. Yeah. They cleaned that up pretty quickly. [1:19:09] total crazy radical Chester Bodine level radical and replace him with a more moderate person. So – but yeah. So like when you go to the beach, it's not chaos anymore? I mean – [1:19:20] I'm not going to – there's always – but, I mean, remember before it was just – it was tense everywhere. I mean it was chaos. Right, everywhere. And then we dug in. It was like crazy. So, no, that's gone. But Skid Row, it's bad as ever. Skid Row is 50 blocks away. [1:19:34] 50 blocks is so crazy. 50 blocks of tents and homeless people. When we first heard that, I was like, that's got to be wrong. It's probably five blocks. [1:19:43] No, it's five zero, 50 blocks. That's an enormous amount of land that's completely covered by homeless encampments. There's like a whole genre of like of like influencers when they first visit Skid Row because everyone hears about it. And then you see like their their tweets are just like they're just like, oh, I couldn't believe. Like I think it's like maybe Ben Shapiro or there's various conservative influencers who have gone to Skid Row and they're like, I had no idea. There was a comic. You have no idea until you see it. There was a comic from the comedy store that filmed something.

[1:20:13] And he had like in his past, he had some I don't think I think currently he was sober when he did this, but he decided to go there and film and stay in one of these encampments just to show what it was like. And this is like 2006 ish. [1:20:30] Six ish somewhere around there. It was fucking nuts even back then. And, you know, we talked about the story of how Skid Row with the whole Jerome Hotel and how it all started. Skid Row is the place where they would take all the homeless people and all the people that were problematic and they would move them there and keep them there. [1:20:49] And the idea was that you just keep them out of Beverly Hills, keep them away from Hollywood. We're doing movies, and we've got famous people walking around. We can't have homeless people. So just snatch them up. [1:20:59] take them downtown and contain them. So they had them contained in this area and they called it skid row. And then, [1:21:06] It just kept getting bigger. It's not that different from the tender one in the sense that those are places where the single resident – those are the places where the really cheap hotels were. They were, like, often for, like, working people that were in town temporarily, like temporary hotels. Some of them would just be cages. There were no walls. Like, you would just get your own little – that was how primitive they were. And then it just evolved over time, and then they became – all of them became subsidized for the homeless. But, yeah, it's – [1:21:31] I think with Trump, and again, like him or hate him or disagree or whatever, you see the potential... [1:21:39] of this country in particular to make a big change. And I think that it's ultimately resulted from a unleashing of, you know, social media made it all possible, allowed for people to get, you know, accurate information for the first time in a different paradigm. So I don't want to lose hope on that.

[1:21:56] The Golden State. [1:21:57] But you lost hope on Oakland. [1:21:59] Yeah. Yeah, but maybe I never had hope for Oakland. So... [1:22:05] One point in time, Oakland was great. [1:22:07] Yeah, I mean, Jerry Brown actually brought it up a bit, you know, got more development there, but... [1:22:12] Yeah, it's all about governance. Yeah, it is. [1:22:16] I guess. Hey, can I use the bathroom? Yeah, yeah, sure. Sure. We'll pause. We'll be right back, folks. [1:22:21] i just uh sent jamie something funny that someone just sent me about san francisco [1:22:28] There's this guy, I think he calls himself the gay Republican. The gay Republican? There's a lot of those. [1:22:35] Actually, but which is. [1:22:38] It shouldn't shock people. Their closet is about the Republican part now. That's the thing. Well, it depends on how wealthy they are. I mean, some of them are pretty – Peter Thiel, pretty open about it. He was – yeah, about his Republicanism. Watch this. [1:22:50] Fran Transit. We refuse to release crime surveillance videos because it will make people racist. Releasing videos would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains. Why would it do that, San Fran Transit? [1:23:04] Why would it create a bias? [1:23:06] Is there a reoccurring theme among the people committing crimes? [1:23:12] You could say that about European crime statistics as well. That's also why the Germans actually... [1:23:18] in particular, but I think other European countries did not want to release. [1:23:22] But they did get them out. They have come out now, so... [1:23:25] And the UK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's move on to happier subjects, shall we?

[1:23:32] So what do you think about all this UAP talk? [1:23:35] It's one thing that Trump has said that he's going to release whatever files that they might have on UAPs, alien terrestrial beings, all this jazz. I talked to Jesse Michaels about it. He is highly skeptical. And he said the people that are involved are all old guard. And, you know, they're just it's just going to be a bunch of horseshit. [1:24:01] Maybe. I mean, just first of all, look, I mean, I think whatever you think about the phenomenon, this is amazing. I mean, the president just said he's going to release all these things. So, I mean, after decades of saying we're not interested in this, we're not we're not following this, we're shutting down Blue Book, you know, there's nothing there. [1:24:16] They're like, he's saying so I mean, that right there is, I think, amazing. And I thought the whole thing was amazing. Like Obama comes out and he goes, well, there's definitely aliens. Oh, but they're not in Area 51. Unless they're hiding it from presidents. [1:24:29] which is like a well-established conspiracy theory, so to have Obama even say that. And then Trump comes up and he goes, [1:24:35] He goes... [1:24:36] Obama... [1:24:37] revealed classified information with a little grin on his face because he's a little rivalry with Obama. I might help him out by declassifying. And then a few hours later, he did. I mean, I what can't you like about that? I mean, I think that. Well, it's theater. [1:24:51] That's what you can't like about it. It's theater, but I mean, we just thought. Until something really comes out, this is just another distraction to keep us from thinking about all the other things that are going on. But you can't be so, I mean, we should get into Epstein files, too, because I do think I have a different view of Epstein now. But, look, I just think we've been asking for more transparency like we had in this very brief period in the mid-70s with the church committee hearings. It really took a whole Watergate. It took something big. It's been over 50 years. We got a lot of Epstein files.

[1:25:21] JFK files, Amelia Earhart files, and now we're going to get some UFO files. Is it going to be everything? Of course not. There's just no way. [1:25:30] We should be happy that there is an acknowledgement that there's a lot of government files and that there's some commitment to release them because I do think – [1:25:40] It's easier to get new Epstein files released after you have some Epstein files released than if you have none. [1:25:45] And I feel the same way about UFOs. [1:25:48] Okay. [1:25:49] So it's easier to get more UFO files released. But, like... [1:25:53] What do we want? I think one of it is what do we want? And I respect John Greenwald a lot. He runs something called theblackvault.com where he has been foyering. He's been issuing Freedom of Information Act requests on UAP but also a ton of other issues since the mid-90s when he was like 15 years old. [1:26:23] Task Force, which has a line that just says potential explanations. You know, the first explanation is redacted, it's blacked out. The second one is, you know, some sort of natural phenomenon. Number three is blacked out, is redacted. [1:26:35] Unredact those. I mean, come on, guys, you can't tell me what we have to protect our sensor data. Come on, guys. I mean, like that's not sensor data. Tell us what the potential explanations are. [1:26:46] In terms of the sensor data, John also made a great point. Do you remember when the Pentagon released the video of the Russian jet –

[1:26:52] dumping fuel on one of our drones. There's like a famous video where they show a hostile act by the Russians dumping fuel on our drone. When was this? Just recently. I mean, must have been within the last year or so. So like they're not we do see they do release. [1:27:08] you know, warfare, various times they do release things, and you can kind of go, okay, that means that we have... [1:27:15] I don't think – what I'm saying is – [1:27:17] The main excuse has been not to reveal our methods for getting, you know, we're just talking about UAP here, getting, you know, photographs and video. We know that a huge amount of it exists. They haven't even released the full. [1:27:31] gimbal and go fast videos. There's a whole bunch more video left. Really? Yeah. So the video that came out, those were whistleblower leaks, right? Eventually they released them formally though, the Pentagon did. So there's much more of that. And particularly, sorry to interrupt you, but was it the gimbal or the go fast where there was many more crafts? [1:27:53] I believe that there was so there's three videos, right? It's Gimbal, Go Fast, and then [1:27:59] What was the one where the Tic Tac video moves out of the frame? My understanding is that there's significantly more video for all of those. And then I also, my understanding is also there's just a lot of other videos, particularly from those two incidents, certainly have. There's so much more sensor data because we know those incidents had a lot more going on, right, than just was filmed by those videos. [1:28:20] So I think that now – [1:28:22] There is, I was gonna say the UAP community, there isn't really an organized one, although Jesse's doing an amazing job of organizing it. We should be really specific and say, you know, here's what we want. I did a piece with John Greenwald.

[1:28:34] Representative Nancy Mace wrote an open letter to [1:28:38] the intelligence and military community saying, here's a set of documents that we want to release. So I think the good news is we're like, look, the president said he wants this. [1:28:46] We've identified a bunch of documents, identified a bunch of videos and film, [1:28:50] Yeah. I mean, are they going to withhold stuff? Are they going to mislead? Probably. But that's been the story for 80 years. Yeah. You saw the age of disclosure, right? Yes, of course. OK, so I think they make a really good point in age of disclosure that. [1:29:03] if they... [1:29:04] Did release things. The real problem is misappropriation of funds lying to Congress and the fact that some of these – you would assume that the way these things are being handled, if they do have crafts, if they are – if there is some sort of a back engineering program, that back engineering program is going to be held by a military contractor. [1:29:27] So whatever the contractor is, whether it's Rocketdyne or whoever has it, right, you would imagine that the other competing groups would be very pissed off that they didn't have access to this thing and they could sue. The misappropriation of funds, lying to Congress, people could go to jail also. [1:29:47] Most likely fraud. There's got to be tons of fraud. If there's so much money that's being like shuffled away into these black ops projects. [1:29:57] Thank you. [1:29:58] If there's no oversight, then who knows where the money is going, right? Sure. So there's a problem there. If you open up the books and people go, why was there a $100 million check written here? Where's the $2.3 billion that's missing here? Right.

[1:30:11] Yeah, I have doubts now. I mean, I have to say, I didn't finish watching it, but Jesse just dropped a video with him and Eric Weinstein – [1:30:19] and Eric Davis. Who's him? Oh, yeah. Eric Davis. Jesse. I haven't seen that yet. Yeah, I found it really... It really made me question whether there's [1:30:29] any there there. What does Eric Davis do? Eric Davis, you know who he is. He's got the bushy beard and he's in Age of Disclosure and [1:30:37] is part of the whole Bigelow... [1:30:41] you know, that whole... [1:30:43] ASAP, ATIP. [1:30:44] He was a, I don't know his exact, he's a scientist. Okay. [1:30:49] He was sort of talking about, because I think Eric Weinstein was asking these really hard questions. Like, okay, well, like... [1:30:53] How many people are in this reverse engineering program and what is it? And I just found his answers to be very thin. So I'm – I haven't seen it yet, so I can't comment on that. But Eric is both skeptical and open-minded at the same time. [1:31:09] There is a... [1:31:10] Like, yeah, I just... [1:31:12] I definitely think there's a lot more than they've revealed. I think my skepticism on the reverse engineering stuff, I mean, obviously, there's crash retrieval because they're just retrieving. It could be foreign or retrieving something. The reverse engineering, I mean, if it's advanced tech, nuclear just took so much. I mean, I'm just familiar with the history of nuclear, just so much effort to create nuclear energy. And you have these huge, huge enterprise, thousands of people. [1:31:38] If they're not – I mean that's why I kind of go – [1:31:41] And I mean a whole other form of propulsion. I mean it's just really – it would require so many – such a big bureaucracy. That's where I'm a little skeptical that that exists because I don't know how you maintain a cover-up that long. But I could be wrong. I mean as –

[1:31:57] As people have pointed out, they've maintained secrecy of a lot of things for a really long time, so it's not inconceivable. Well, especially when you're dealing with government contractors and military contractors. They've done – I mean they have a long history of keeping a tight lip. [1:32:12] when it comes to all sorts of top secret projects that they're working on. I mean, it's weird because, like, if you look at the UAP Task Force, which was created by people that had it, you know, it comes out of – they have OSAP and then AATIP and then UAP Task Force, and then they create Aero, which is much more like what Blue Book was, which is their whole point is to debunk and dismiss. I think that's the whole point. It's just to say we looked into it and there's nothing there. So then they – and they cherry pick – [1:32:39] Like they don't actually deal with stuff that they can't explain. That's what Arrow's point is. But the UAP task force was people that seem genuinely interested in it. And they have potential explanations and three separate things. That means that they didn't know themselves. And so I would think that if you if there was some reverse engineering program. [1:32:56] then you would have a better idea than just three potential explanations. But that's assuming they actually got access. [1:33:03] The UAP task force people? Yeah. [1:33:06] Because if they open themselves up for – if they do have access, then you open up those questions, misappropriation of funds, line to Congress, military contractors having access to these vehicles. I would imagine that's too messy. They get very mumbly. They get very mumbly at that point. [1:33:23] I find we start kind of, well, what is it? And how many people kind of, it's a lot of like, you know, I mean, that's how I, that's how that was my interpretation of this.

[1:33:31] I think that it's – I'm much more with Jacques Vallée's view of the phenomenon, and I think that it – that they don't know what it is. I think they have a lot more – [1:33:41] photos and videos showing, demonstrating this incredible phenomenon, but I'm not sure that they know what it is. And I'm pretty skeptical that they have... [1:33:51] a secret reverse engineering program just because I don't see how they would have carried it out for this long. Because Jesse's theory, of course, is that it would date back to the 50s. [1:34:02] There's just too many possibilities for too many deathbed confessions from people to reveal this knowledge. [1:34:07] But don't you think you would keep – [1:34:11] really close watch on anyone who had any access to any of these things, and that would be very threatening to them, like Bob Lazar. [1:34:20] Yeah. I mean, I don't know. You believe Bob's lore. I do. [1:34:23] Yeah. [1:34:24] I don't know what he was working on, whether or not it was ours or something else or what. But I don't think he's a liar. He's had the same story forever. Well, then we should go demand the documents. I mean, that would be something where – [1:34:36] Yeah. [1:34:36] We just need to be like, look, these are the documents that we want, and it's on this place these years. Well, one of the things that Bob said is he thinks some of the documents that he was shown were horseshit, and he thinks it's on purpose. He thinks that those fake documents, that the fake narratives are a hook, so that if somebody does spill the beans, they know exactly who would. [1:34:59] Who was doing it? Because they could point to like maybe if you're involved in X program, they give you some bullshit narrative on top of the real truth. Right. They'll make up some stuff. Right. That way, if you really, well, the government told me X. And you go, oh, OK. He learned it from this. Right. He's a part of this program. Now we've narrowed it down to 250 employees. Let's start scouring these people. It's kind of intelligent. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats.

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[1:37:17] Yeah, counterintelligence. Yeah, I mean, it seems like that. So, you know, the MJ-12 documents. Yes. There's one of them that is this incredible document. I mean, just if it's a forgery. Most people, I think, think it's a forgery or it's a hoax or whatever. It's so well done. It's the manual on extraterrestrial crash retrieval with different morphologies. You ever seen this? No. It's an amazing document. Like I spent went down a long rabbit hole. [1:37:40] Look, I would say most ufologists think it's fake, so it's not even me. What's incredible about it, they show like – you know like the old books from the library? They'd show who checked it out. They had all these names. So then you kind of go like – [1:37:53] The only people really. I mean, it seemed like the level of sophistication to create this would have been the government. And so then you're sort of like, well, why would they have done that? One of the answers is it was just this is called passage material to be able to detect counterintelligence attacks. [1:38:06] activities. [1:38:08] I'll tell you another one I can't quite figure out. I mean, it's a lot of effort to and why that narrative. I mean, another thing I was people say is I'll go, well, they're using the UAP stuff as cover for secret weapons programs. And you're like, well, why would that work as cover? And they go, well, because then then it's a way to distract attention. I was like, why would that distract attention? Wouldn't that? [1:38:30] attract attention you go don't if you as opposed to like within the military like look we don't this is this is secret research you know that's really important national security we don't pay attention instead they're like oh no this is UFO crash retrieval so don't pay attention to it that seems like you're a recipe for. [1:38:46] creating more interest in UFOs. Yeah. So there's a lot of things that the government has done where you're like, it's almost like assuming that is, by the way, that,

[1:38:54] We know that the government, the U.S. Air Force, did... [1:38:58] you know, in the early 80s, make this guy Paul Benowitz go crazy, who was seeing things over Kirtland Air Base. And then this guy, Richard Doty. [1:39:05] How did they make him go crazy? They would be feeding him all this information, convincing him of an alien attack. And he basically ended up going crazy from it. It's this amazing story told by this book, Mirage Men, also a documentary. And you look and you kind of go and they go, well, it was to cover up a secret weapons program at Kirtland Air Base. And it's like – [1:39:24] It's like, I'm not even disbelieving it, but it's like, that's just such a... [1:39:28] Like, why would that be the... [1:39:30] best way to do that? And why would you be so sure that that wouldn't attract interest from people rather than distract it? So there's a bunch of things that don't make sense. And so even if it is all... [1:39:41] which is the skeptic view, is that it's some combination of government disinformation, sci-fi, [1:39:47] You know, dreams, hypnosis, hypnagogic states, and then and then kind of the power of belief. You know, I just reviewed this new book on Barney and Betty Hill, where the author thinks that it was that that really was a combination of her dreams. [1:40:03] It was the stress of being an interracial couple, her nightmares, and then hypnosis where they then confabulate this whole story. That's the basic skeptic view is that it was sort of – but the government is involved in it, and that's always strange because you're like, why would the government be participating? The government is involved in the Betty and Barney Hill story? No, no, in the UFO, in creating – assuming that they did the MJ-12 or somebody did the MJ-12, but certainly in the case of – Right. Why would they have any organizations?

[1:40:32] Why would they have anything, right? Why would they have – Why would you be doing – like the thing with like the Paul Doty and the Paul Benowitz or the Richard Doty and Paul Benowitz is like why – [1:40:42] Why was that the best? I mean, it's just, why was that the best way? Like somebody has observed strange activity over Kirtland Air Base and they discover this. [1:40:50] Why was that the right approach? I don't follow it. And you had A.J. Gentile on who did the stuff on crop circles. They saw military disinformation around those activities in Britain. So you see a lot of – [1:41:05] The crop circle thing is weird. Really weird. Because you want to just write it off. [1:41:10] I mean, I wanted to write it off. I'm like, oh, there's guys with boards. They're making designs. But then you see some of the designs and how the wheat is actually woven and how they have these exploded nodes, almost like they're microwaved. And they've examined these things, and it seems like there's some energy that's created these things. And also the sheer size and scale of some of these things with no footprints leading into them or out of them. [1:41:40] of some of them. It's really weird. Like, there's... [1:41:44] Of course, it's eyewitness accounts. It's hard to know if they're being accurate. But people who've flown over areas where there's nothing there, flown back two hours later. And there's these football field size Mandelbrot sets. That was the Julia set over next to Stonehenge was the one that – [1:42:00] The guy flew over and there was nothing there. And a couple of hours later, there was the Julia set, which is a spectacular...

[1:42:06] Yeah, it's incredible. Right. I'll tell you, it's even weirder. With incredible precision. That's what's really as much precision as you can get by folding over wheat. But when you look at it from above and you don't get to the micro, you're looking at [1:42:22] These things that like they really do scale in a fractal way. [1:42:27] It's very fucking strange and difficult to reproduce. You would imagine something like that would take a long fucking time to plot out and plan. It would take multiple people. You'd have to measure and remeasure. You'd have to have some... [1:42:39] Some sort of tools and instruments, not just to fold over the wheat, but if you're going to interweave the wheat, like what is your method of doing that? And how are you doing it where, you know, this one is one dimension and then the next one is precisely three-fifths of that dimension. The next one is slightly – and they're fractal. [1:43:00] Well, it gets really even weirder than that. So you know how I just described this case of this Air Force counterintelligence guy driving this guy, Paul Benowitz, crazy at Carolina Affairs. That book is written by Mark Pilkington. Mark Pilkington is one of two guys that claim to have created all the crop circles. The other guy is a guy named John Lundberg. Oh, right, right, right. In his video about – [1:43:23] the crop circles, accuses John Lundberg. Again, the circle makers, they have a website they keep updated. He accuses him of being a British intelligence agent. AJ does, or at least he strongly implies it. And part of that is because there was a bunch of weird stuff on the website about MI5 and the CIA.

[1:43:43] And then Lundberg went to a school. This is all very circumstantial, so I'm not defending. I'm just saying what AJ said. [1:43:48] Then Lundberg went to a school that shares a courtyard with an MI5 campus or an MI5 training area. [1:43:55] I asked Mark – I have like three hours of interviews with Mark, who I'm a really interesting person. I asked him directly if they had any connection to military intelligence. He said absolutely not. It's hard to – Which is what you would say. Well, of course you're allowed to say it if you are, but I'm not making any accusations. But yeah, I mean he claimed that they made all of them. And there's some of them – have you ever seen the massive – there's one that was absolutely massive. Yeah, pull some of them up, Jamie, so we can get some. There's the Julius set. [1:44:25] It's so big, it's really hard to see, but he said that he wasn't at that one. Yeah. That's the famous, that's the Julius Set's gorgeous. Oh, the big one right there is in the middle. That one's just crazy. I mean, these are enormous. Yeah, they're enormous. Go full screen on that. [1:44:38] It's they're so big. [1:44:42] and [1:44:42] I mean, the amount of precision involved in them is kind of spectacular. Now, Mark denies that they have exploded nodes, and he denies that they're interwoven. AJ says that they are definitely interwoven and have exploded nodes, and there was even an article in Science Magazine saying, [1:45:00] which, [1:45:00] argues that they were made by humans, but that they point out the exploded nodes. So, yeah, maybe that's it. What's weird, too, is there's like... [1:45:10] How did you do this? Where's the evidence of people trampling through this with equipment?

[1:45:18] It's all missing. Like, [1:45:20] It's strange. And then also no one's caught doing them. How about the pie? Here's the other one. I asked Mark about this and he didn't know about it. But do you know the pie one? Yeah, it was apparently I'm pretty sure it's the first time that it was a visual explanation of pie. That's my understanding of it. Now, maybe maybe there's someone I haven't seen anything earlier than that. But that's like on its own is really amazing that that was the first time that they had created a visual representation of of pie. [1:45:50] It's like there's another image that will show how it is pie, probably that one right there. [1:45:56] Thank you. [1:45:57] And so that's a [1:46:00] Extremely sophisticated. Extremely. Crop circle. Right. I mean, imagine the type of... [1:46:06] intelligence that you'd have to possess to pull this off. [1:46:11] and then not let anybody know that you did it, [1:46:14] And it's just for funsies. [1:46:16] Thank you. [1:46:16] Just for funsies in a field. [1:46:18] Yeah, it's, and then, you know, these MIT researchers went out. That's also part of it, and they tried to do it, and it just wasn't. [1:46:25] It wasn't nearly as good. Yeah. What is this article saying? I don't know why you're going to talk. Okay. Yeah. It is very fucking weird. Yeah. It's very weird. But the whole UFO thing is very weird. [1:46:38] You know, the Jacques Vallée books are very interesting, and I've read three of his books so far. [1:46:43] And I've had him on a couple of times. And the last time I had him on, I really went on a deep dive and I read two of his books right before he came on. And one of the more interesting things is the really old stories.

[1:46:56] Like the stories from the 1700s, the 1800s, where they lack the context of spaceships, the idea behind it. Like none of that stuff exists. But yet you get... [1:47:08] Almost at least you could say, oh, I could understand how they would be describing it this way. But it's kind of the same thing that other people have been describing. The Zimbabwe story, a lot of these other stories, it's kind of the same story over and over and over again, which makes you go, OK, well, what does it have to be from outer space or is it possible that there is something here? [1:47:34] That is... [1:47:35] like far older. Yeah. [1:47:37] than us. [1:47:38] that has somehow or another removed itself from our view. [1:47:43] Or is it social contagion? [1:47:45] I mean, I'm always struck by it. It's always like the aliens always are like, oh, protect your environment and avoid nuclear war. It's like, oh, thanks. Like, we didn't know we needed to do those until you guys showed up. And it makes more sense as like... [1:47:57] You could see it as a – I mean I got very into – I haven't interviewed her yet, but I'm about to. There's an anthropologist at Stanford named Tanya Lerman, and she's done this incredible work on religions where she – like a good anthropologist and also this guy, Bowman, like they – [1:48:13] They're agnostic on whether or not like those beings are real. Like they're just like we're really interested in like the culture and the psychology and the experience of it. But she had this – she – [1:48:23] She was like – did her field work with magicians and witches in England, like modern witches and – not magicians like magic tricks, but like the old – who's the famous magician? Not Gandalf. Houdini? No, no, the British one. Merlin, right? Oh. But like old style, right? But they were like – so she didn't really believe in it, but they were like, you have to practice witchcraft in order to do this. And she had like multiple anomalous experiences, one of them that she woke up and there was five druids.

[1:48:53] in her room [1:48:55] beckoning to her. And people are like, is it a dream? And she's like, no, it's not a dream. She had another instance where they were trying to conjure energies to shut down her watch. And she felt a huge energy surge through her and shut off her watch. And her point is that she thinks that [1:49:11] the practice, we put too much focus on the beliefs, but she says like the practices themselves... [1:49:18] I don't know if she would say conjure. I also interviewed Diana Pasolka on it. They would say more like reveal... [1:49:23] these different realities. So they're much more, it's a very interesting set of work because they're not... [1:49:29] They're not trying to answer the question of whether the druids were really in her room or not. [1:49:34] I mean the watch thing apparently definitely happened. Apparently definitely is a weird way to phrase it. Apparently to her definitely. I know. You know what I'm saying? It's like show me, man. The conjuring thing is strange because that's a reoccurring theme that you go outside and you have like these experiences where you say I'm not afraid. Come show yourself to me and give it enough time with enough intention. [1:50:04] things will appear in the sky. My favorite one is the black guy talking about Yahweh, where the local ABC newscaster goes out and it's going to be one of those, ha ha, this guy thinks that he can conjure UFOs. And they go out with him [1:50:17] And he conjures an orb. Do you ever see that one? That's like an incredible... That's like one of my favorite of those videos. And the newscaster is like... Literally, they see him calling his... I think it's like an NBC affiliate...

[1:50:28] or an ABC affiliate somewhere. Jamie can probably find it. But he literally calls his boss, the newscaster. He's like, the story's turned out a little differently than I thought. It's like one of my favorites. I'm sure you could say, oh, it's a balloon or whatever, but it comes in and out. I mean, it's really, and it comes right as he's, [1:50:45] calling it, [1:50:46] That's the weird thing is I've talked to multiple people that have actually done this. Oh, people – That have gone out with these air quotes experts. [1:50:56] And they go out to some deserted area and you call these things. There's a second guy, white guy, that also does it. And Reuters did a whole story on him because apparently there's a whole bunch of people around that they saw it. And, of course, Jake Barber, who's this former contractor, helicopter pilot, contractor for special forces, announced that he was going to go and. [1:51:19] conjure UFOs and bring one down. They're just sitting right up there. We met up with Prophet Yahweh, seer of Yahweh, at Doolittle Park off Lake Mead. We picked the day, we picked the time, and we picked the location. Everyone's going to think, you're absolutely nuts. Well, I thought I was absolutely nuts. [1:51:37] nuts until he says he saw UFOs over the years 1500 of them if we make it 1,501 today what do you think I'll try it he says the voice in his head told him to go public now so we took him up on his offer and we scanned the skies nothing but a few clouds when the prophet started praying for a sighting I wasn't exactly convinced I pray oh Yahweh that you send a sighting so that they know that

[1:52:03] I am not mentally ill. I am not a false prophet. Like those who seek to kill me say I am. Oh, people are trying to kill them? Oh, no. [1:52:12] Brother, look at it. There it is. [1:52:13] You can barely see it, a white speck. Then, another sighting. There it is. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Photo journalist Jonathan Hawkins locks in on it. Let's take a closer look here. It's an orange sphere that appeared out of nowhere. I call the boss with an unexpected change in my story. I can see it clear as day. In fact, it's bright. I can't see it. It's moving pretty fast. It's going to Nellis Air Force Base. It wants to be seen. We called Nellis to see what these things might be. [1:52:43] Guess what? They didn't call us back, but this thing started coming back toward us. Coming toward us now, I think. What? [1:52:51] See, it's coming up toward us. [1:52:54] Whoa, man! Oh, hallelujah! Then, a few seconds later, it disappeared. It's going back up in space. Prophet Yahweh isn't concerned. He says it'll be back. [1:53:08] I would take this more seriously if that guy didn't have your reporter voice. It's amazing. That's part of the charm of it. I think it's... [1:53:17] I love it because I don't think it's going to convince any skeptics. But it's like one of the few things in our world where it inspires a set of wonder and a set of awe. And for those of us that struggle with our faiths, it's inspiring because it is sort of a spiritual – I mean he calls himself Yahweh, right? Right. So there's like – it wasn't about like gray aliens or whatever. It was just something else. And that's what I mean about like why more valet –

[1:53:44] His work explains all of this much better than the sort of the extraterrestrial hypothesis did, and he's had that since 68. Well, I think what he does best is not explain it. [1:53:54] Yeah. He doesn't – yeah. There really isn't an explanation, but here's what we know. He calls it a control system though. Yeah. Which is sort of like – I asked Diana. I was like, how is that different from God? [1:54:06] Because he's sort of a control system that is, his view is that there's a control system that's evolving human consciousness and it will manifest different. [1:54:14] things or in relation with humans over time and so he looks at the [1:54:20] You know, the apparition, Maria or St. Mary apparitions in Spain and the airships of the late 19th century where people saw these things that look like the zeppelins, even though they hadn't been invented yet. All of these things, he says, his view is they're sort of being invented. [1:54:36] sort of produced in some relationship as well with our culture. That's Valet's argument. And that sounds a lot like God in some ways when you say control system. Right. What does that mean? Like, is it a higher life form that is monitoring us? Like, that's the secular... [1:54:53] version of religion for a lot of these people that are really interested in aliens like that there's some advanced being that's making sure we don't fuck everything up completely certainly for me that's my interest i mean i um [1:55:05] Like, again, this anthropologist Lerman, you know, she says, you know, William James is this famous Harvard psychologist who wrote a book about the varieties of the religious experience in 1902. And he says everybody wants to kind of be like, is it real or not real?

[1:55:19] Is this world just what we see? And he says, I think there's something more. [1:55:23] There's not... So this very... [1:55:26] you know, skeptic or debunker thing, which is like, Oh, no, it's just got to be a that thing's got to be a bird or it's like, well, but it really you haven't just calling it that. And as they point out, it's like they showed up when they wanted to. I mean, it's a pretty amazing if it's just a coincidence. It's a really amazing one. And so I think. [1:55:41] For me, it's like because I am a Christian and it is hard to believe in an all powerful and all good God because he obviously allowed the Holocaust to occur and allows terrible things to occur. [1:55:54] That segment, and there's another one I love right now. It's like a British woman in the 50s doing an interview about seeing what she calls a Mexican hat UFO over her house. And the kids saw it. [1:56:05] And she and everybody in the village made fun of her and they ridiculed her. And she's like, but it's, you know, but it's I saw it and it was real. And it was like, it's like. [1:56:13] Those are spiritual... [1:56:15] experiences, I think. So I don't know that... [1:56:19] I want the files released from the government. [1:56:21] I'm also skeptical that it's going to tell us what it is because I think – [1:56:25] At some level, we're not supposed to get much more information about what it is. I think it's something else is going on. Or maybe – [1:56:33] it's having a positive effect. I think it's, [1:56:35] I think one of the – sometimes people get really mad at UFO believers. Like skeptics get really like angry. Like how do they – whatever. They get so mad. And I'm always like but like how often do you see them causing real harm or problems? I mean we had one cult where they – like a few people killed themselves. But for the most part – They cut their balls off first. Yeah, great. So UFO – like for the most part UFO – people that are interested in UFOs are dreamy seekers, spiritual. And I think it's – I think it's wrong to –

[1:57:05] I think it's lovely and wonderful, and it reminds us of, you know, that we're small. On the one hand, we're humble about our knowledge, and they're just surrounded by mystery. I mean, so much of your career and this platform has been to allow us to talk about things that are unexplained, or where the explanations don't really seem to explain it. There's something more, as William James would say. There's something more, and I think that the denial of anything more, this idea that, oh, we know everything, and we don't know anything. That's hubris. It's just crazy. [1:57:35] Those people are silly. They're more silly than the believers because this idea that, like, look – [1:57:43] If you have a completely novel experience, like say if you are Commander David Fravor and you encounter this tic-tac-shaped object that's hovering over something that appears to be a ship that's under the water, this thing – [1:57:57] takes off at an absolutely preposterous speed that is documented both in radar and visually and on camera. So they've got video of this thing moving. They say that it went from above 50,000 feet above sea level to sea level in less than a second, which would require more energy than the entire United States produces in a year now. [1:58:22] in order to get an object to move that quickly. [1:58:25] And it does that with no heat signature. [1:58:27] Okay, if this is all true... [1:58:29] Just that alone. Now imagine you have this completely novel experience. [1:58:34] And [1:58:35] Because I haven't had it, and you haven't had it, and Jamie hasn't had it.

[1:58:39] It's very simple and easy to dismiss it. But if this happened... [1:58:44] What do you... What... [1:58:45] What do you expect the person to do? What do you expect a decorated pilot in the Navy, a guy who has a rock-solid record, who is – there's nothing about him that screams that he's a kook or he's mentally ill. And when you talk to him, he's incredibly meticulous, very intelligent, very disciplined. Yeah. [1:59:08] His face, it... [1:59:11] it looks like he had a spiritual experience. He had a smile on his face. I went to the, when I was in Delhi, I went to the Jain temple and I went to the Hindu temple and I'm not Jane. I'm not Hindu. But I had a look on my face that reminded me that sort of, [1:59:24] That's sort of like that starry eye, the look in your face where you've experienced the wonder and the awe of being alive. And we're on this planet and we don't really understand it all, but it's beautiful and it's OK. And. [1:59:38] I think that that's the spiritual. I mean, that's where it's like he's been touched by. I don't you know, I'm not imposing this, but he's sort of touched by God in some way, but touched by something. Something. And it's not something extraordinary. Yeah. And the thing. Look, I think the other thing you read that environment, you're like that thing showed dominance. [1:59:53] in that environment. So on the one hand, it's technological dominance. [1:59:57] Call it technological. Whatever. Valet might call it spiritual dominance. Right. You know. So but that's for me what's. [2:00:03] what's special about it. And I think it's not going to go away. And I don't think we're going to get to the answer. I don't think I don't think the government.

[2:00:11] How could the government – I don't think they know. Even if there was some contact, I don't know if that would really tell you all the answers. Well, what I could imagine is that they have – [2:00:23] acquired both eyewitness, video, radar, all the various sensors' data, [2:00:31] And they've done this with multiple instances of these things, and they are trying to assess what this is. And they have a longstanding study of these things that – [2:00:45] would both be disturbing and confusing to a lot of people and disruptive to society. I'm sure you're well aware of how put off and what happened with him during the Bush administration where they brought him in and they essentially told how put off. Now, this is assuming House telling the truth. And I have no reason to think he's lying. They brought him in and a bunch of other scientists and a bunch of other thinkers and said, [2:01:11] I want you to create a chart. [2:01:13] On one side... [2:01:14] list the positive aspects of disclosure. On the other side, what are the negative ramifications of disclosure? Government, religion, [2:01:23] The finances, all the different things that could happen in the world. And the negatives outweighed the positives. They decided not to disclose. But the premise that he was brought in with this was saying we have acquired – [2:01:37] physical crafts, [2:01:38] that are not of this world. We have biological entities that are not of this world. And we are a part of some sort of a back engineering program. We want to release this information.

[2:01:49] What would happen if we did? [2:01:51] And their conclusion was chaos. Trump didn't seem to go through that checklist and come up with the same answer. I don't think he got that memo. But also I do think – I think he ignores the memos from experts in general. Right. If he was in office and that was the case and they came to him and someone like Tucker or someone that's influential to him could sit down with him and talk to him and he thought it would gain their favor, he might just release it. [2:02:21] There's like someone that's like a trusted family member who's like really competent. Like they sent her in to like take over the RNC and fix it and fire all the people and get their loyalists in there. She was out there talking, saying that, you know, oh, Trump is – I was hearing a lot of noise, but it wasn't from people that I trusted, so I didn't report anything on it. But I was hearing a lot of noise too that the Trump administration was considering doing something, but you didn't know. I didn't know if it was circular reporting. But I thought the Laura Trump thing was interesting because I don't think – I don't see her as sort of a – she's not just speculating or bullshitting. [2:02:51] a trusted, you know, kind of... [2:02:54] trusted source for that. So she said that and then Obama was asked about and then Trump made that announcement. So I don't know what they have planned. You know, we were pushing on the intelligence community privately to release the stuff and it was going nowhere. The Obama thing was nuts because the guy didn't have any follow up questions. [2:03:08] That was part of what was really weird about it. Also, they put it in a speed round. [2:03:13] Like, why would you put in a speed round? Which is probably why he didn't have follow up questions if you think about it that way. But I mean, that's a just a massive dropping of the ball. Well, the guy says aliens are real. How do you know?

[2:03:25] How do you know is the next question, right? It's right there. How do you know aliens are real? Well, yesterday, the day after then, he said, oh, I just meant theoretically and there's life in the universe. Well, why don't you ask that? So you catch them on the spot instead of when it becomes this big viral moment and everybody's talking about it. And then he comes up with a rational explanation for why he said that. Yeah. I mean, and he told Obama told one of the late night hosts, I can't remember if it was Kimmel or Colbert or somebody, but he said they said something like, tell us what you know. And he said, you know, I can't tell you. There's things I can't tell you. So, I mean. [2:03:55] He obviously knows more than he said. Right. Otherwise, he would say there's nothing. And then Trump said that he knows more. It's very interesting. You know, I talked to Trump about it. Yeah. He won't tell you shit. He kind of move around. I know some things. Yeah. A lot of. It's very crazy. [2:04:11] But, you know, he said they weren't going to release the Epstein files and that came out. So I just kind of go. [2:04:17] Now, I have a different – I don't know if you want to get into it, but I have a slightly different view of Epstein than I think I did. [2:04:22] Well, before we get into that, you know Tucker's thoughts on this whole UFO, UAP thing? He thinks they're like angels and demons from the Bible, and he thinks that they've always been here. [2:04:35] And, you know, I'm sure you're aware of like the Book of Enoch, the Book of Enoch, which was one of the original biblical texts that wasn't included in the canon. But just because of a few rabbis decided it didn't jive with the Torah. And they found the Book of Enoch along with the Book of Isaiah as a part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. [2:04:55] When you find out that there was a biblical text that was contemporary to books that did make it into the Old Testament and that they talk about the Watchers –

[2:05:08] who come from above and mate with humans and create this race of giants called the Nephilim who destroy everything and consume everything. And you're like, what the fuck is this? Like, what is this? And just stop and imagine if those rabbis hadn't – like, if that hadn't been – [2:05:27] Excluded. [2:05:28] Wesley Hoffa's great [2:05:30] talking about this stuff. He's a real historian when it comes to, you know, really understanding the history of these biblical texts. And, you know, and he's absolutely fascinated by it. And he's like, yeah, it's kind of crazy that they just decided to not. [2:05:43] put that in the Bible. Imagine if they did. And part of when you're going to church and they – [2:05:48] They're going over the Old Testament. Like, okay, this week we're going to go over the... [2:05:53] Book of Enoch. [2:05:55] And we're going to figure out who the Watchers are. Like, what do you... [2:05:58] What is that? Like, what is that story? The crazy thing that Wes Huff told me was that the book of Isaiah that they found in the Dead Sea Scroll predates the oldest version of the book of Isaiah by more than a thousand years when they found it. [2:06:15] They found out that there was a book of Isaiah that is a thousand years older than the one they thought was the oldest one. And it is verbatim. [2:06:23] It's verbatim from the one that's a thousand years later. Wow. Which is kind of crazy. Wow. [2:06:29] But then it's also in the same fucking caves. [2:06:32] as the book of Enoch. [2:06:33] It's all together in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Amazing. I mean, we've had this... we've been fed this story that sort of all of these religions and myths from the past are all just false. Right. They're all just hallucinations. Right. They're all just lies. I don't believe that. It's just really... it's really arrogant, actually. Like, it's like, well, no, now, like, we've been around for, you know, humans have been around for, like, millions of years, but the last 150 years, it's like, we really figured it all out. And we figured out that all human knowledge before...

[2:07:02] You know, whatever. Some recent time period is is nonsense. Yeah, I think that's quite arrogant. It's very arrogant. But I look, I'm a believer that history is far older than we think it is. I'm and I think the more time goes on, the more that gets revealed. So. [2:07:18] When you're talking about something that's 4,000 or 5,000 years old, I think really you're talking about a retelling of a far older story. [2:07:26] And I think there's [2:07:29] It's very difficult when you're dealing with people that don't have an understanding of science. The written language is fairly new. It's an oral tradition for generations before it's ever written down. So my question with all this is always like, what were they trying to talk about? What were they trying to say? What was the original experience that someone documented in story? [2:07:59] written down and then they study it and take it literally and then also translating it from aramaic which is the dead sea scrolls ancient hebrew all these different languages to latin and greek and eventually english like but what's the original story like what what are they trying to document what is this important knowledge that they want to share and how screwed up would that [2:08:29] ultimate truth is in there. [2:08:31] Like I'm absolutely fascinated by the story of Jesus Christ because if you wanted to come up with a way that people would live that would absolutely be far more beneficial than just going on natural instincts and tribal behavior and you would follow Jesus' teachings. Like there's – I can't find a flaw in the way he –

[2:08:56] tells you to live life. There's a lot of religions that involve, you know, torturing non-believers and raping infidels and being able to do terrible things to the people that don't believe your religion. There's none of that in Christianity. It's all forgiveness. It's all treating your brother and your neighbor as if they're you. [2:09:19] Like it's a beautiful way to live life. Are you Christian? Well, I go to church. I have been for quite a while. Okay. I've been doing it for the last three or four years. But that's not really an answer to the question. Well, because I don't know. [2:09:31] I think... [2:09:32] It's very interesting. And I do believe that [2:09:36] If you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, you will live a better life. I really do believe that. And one of the things I talk about is like the people that I go to church with are the most fucking polite people I've ever met in my life. They're so kind and so nice. And everybody lets you out of the parking lot. Everybody's like, you go. It's like the one. It works. You know what I'm saying? Like if people are trying to find an idea, does that mean I believe people came back from the dead? Does that mean I believe Moses part of the Red Sea? [2:10:05] Not really. [2:10:06] No, it seems like that's most likely a story where people are telling it generation after generation after generation. But there's probably something happening. There's probably some truth to it. Then you take into account some of the stories from the Old Testament, like the book of Ezekiel, which I'm absolutely fascinated by. Book of Ezekiel and his account of the wheel within a wheel and the fire flashing forth continually and in the midst of the fire as it were gleaming metal. Like what the hell is that?

[2:10:35] Like, what is that? Like, what are these stories? And in the midst of this gleaming, there's the likeness of four living creatures. Like, okay, they darted to and fro, like the appearance of a flash of lightning. Okay, what is that? Like, what are they... [2:10:51] What were they trying to say and what was the original experience that people documented that was so important? [2:10:58] And it might have been a lot more similar to these UFO experiences. That's the point. Yeah. I think this is one of the things that Tucker goes back to. [2:11:06] Story is so beautiful and so important. You know, Rene Girard's view of Christianity is really stopping the cycle of scapegoating, you know, scapegoating where and I'm seeing it right now as part of the reason we've been pushing back against the moral panic on Epstein is that. [2:11:23] You scapegoat the thing. Traditionally, it literally was a goat, but you scapegoat the person or whatever. Wait a minute. Originally, it was a goat? It really was a goat. Yeah. It was a goat. Really? It would carry the sins of the community. Oh, you'd sacrifice the goat? I think you would send it away to die or something. Oh. But over time, it became people. That's what a scapegoat was? Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Somebody's a goat. Goats are the devil. Goats are everything. Goats get a bad rap. Goats are in your lobby, aren't they? Those are elk. [2:11:53] No, in your lobby. No, there's a big difference. Yeah, but I mean, so Christianity puts an end to that. It says stop. [2:12:00] I mean, they scapegoated Jesus, really. I mean, you kind of go that you scapegoat the way the purpose of the scapegoating was to.

[2:12:07] was for the community to unite the community and scapegoat to put all of its sins on one thing and then kill it or get rid of it. And that was the way the community would restore unity. Christianity said, no, we're not going to do it that way. That's immoral. And so he, without sin, should be the first to cast a stone. Jesus wasn't saying that prostitution – [2:12:30] was good or anything. He was saying that we should not be scapegoating. You know, you've got sins too. So don't scapegoat this person. That's a really radical moment in human history. And it really is what allowed humans to [2:12:43] spread, it creates a universal, I mean, Christianity is the first universal, it's really universal religion. [2:12:48] Maybe it's not the only, but it's a universal religion. It says everybody is a child of God and it's evangelical and wants other people to become Christian. That's very important. [2:12:57] That's different from other religions where I'm like, this is my God. I've got my own God here, and we're the best, and you suck. And they make it very difficult to join. Yeah, and it's not to say that Christians – obviously there was fighting the Muslims, and there's some interesting revisionism there. But it's a beautiful religion. There's terrible things that have been done under the guise of Christianity. But if you listen to the teachings of Jesus Christ, they're not following his teachings. [2:13:24] So it's like it's just human behavior. [2:13:26] That they have tagged on to Christianity. So when people say Christianity is responsible for horrible atrocities, I say no. I say humans are. Because if it was actually Christianity, you would be following the teachings of Christ and there would be none of those things.

[2:13:41] I mean, anti-Semitism is not Christian. Right. [2:13:45] So true Christianity is not that. So. [2:13:49] I think it's lovely, and I hope there's a revival of some of it. I'm not sure there is. I think there is more now than before. There's a lot of young people that are getting into – [2:13:58] into Christianity. I think it's good to... I think it's also... I mean, essentially, we were talking about the UFO thing. It's an awareness that there's a higher power. So one can sort of say, look, the UFO thing, it's not the same as Christianity or whatever, but... [2:14:09] This awareness that we're not... [2:14:11] Like there's something else going on. There's something more. There's something higher than us and that we should be humble about. [2:14:16] in the face of this just gigantic mystery, I think that puts us in a better... [2:14:21] It certainly does. And if anything, if he's not the son of God, if this was an actual historical figure, [2:14:30] What an insanely wise human being. [2:14:33] who didn't have these thoughts that are inherent to all of us of vengeance and lust and greed. He has none of these thoughts. [2:14:41] So radical. Also, you've heard it said before that you should love your friends and hate your enemies. I say to you, you should love your enemies. I mean, that's just – it's like the hardest – [2:14:53] I'm not there. I think very few people are there. But it's certainly the right... [2:14:59] Yes. Yeah, it's the right aspiration. And Tucker thinks that this whole UFO thing is somehow connected to the spiritual realm. Yeah. [2:15:09] Well, because we've been told for so long that there is no spiritual realm, that spiritual realm is just a mental illness. Right. You know, it's like how he's like the Yahweh thing. He's like – But the problem is the people that tell you that are all mentally ill. They're all very unhappy. Like atheists, like secular – like hardcore atheists are some of the most unhappy, depressed people I know. I don't seem like incredibly happy – unless they do a lot of mushrooms. And those people tend to not be atheists anymore. That's the one weird thing.

[2:15:39] experiences, one of the first things they go, maybe there is a God. Like maybe, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about because if I just experienced that and that's a real thing that you could have while alive on earth where you are confronted with divine wisdom and love. [2:15:55] in some weird, strange form. You know, when there's a lot of people that believe that that's the source of a lot of religious experiences, and instead of alienating and making those things illegal, we should study them and make them a part of the religious experience, because it's probably what they were originally. [2:16:14] When you're a small business owner, you're always looking for the next big thing. Whether you're a gym owner looking to expand, a store stocking up for a busy season, or a restaurant owner planning a new menu, [2:16:25] You'll always need capital to grow. [2:16:27] But traditional banks are making it harder than ever to secure a small business loan. [2:16:32] That's why thousands of business owners trust Cardiff for same-day funding. [2:16:36] Their online application takes less than five minutes and won't impact your personal credit score. [2:16:42] With over two decades of expertise, it's no surprise business owners keep voting Cardiff, America's favorite small business lender. [2:16:50] If you've been operating for at least a year and are earning at least $20,000 a month in revenue... [2:16:54] Apply now for up to $500,000 in same-day business funding at cardiff.co.rogan. [2:17:01] Again, that's cardiff.co slash rogan. Cardiff. Borrow better. [2:17:07] This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. When you're looking to hire, you consider someone's skills, experience, availability, but even more important than that is someone's enthusiasm. They should want to be there. Finding the right kind of motivation isn't as tough as you think. You just need ZipRecruiter. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. ZipRecruiter connects you with qualified candidates instantly,

[2:17:37] latest feature puts the most interested ones at the top of your list so you can make sure you're speaking with the right people at the start use zip recruiter and find enthusiastic talent fast four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day and now you can try it for free at zip recruiter.com slash rogan that's zip recruiter.com slash rogan [2:18:07] ZipRecruiter. [2:18:08] Well, that's right. And so now that people are having spiritual experiences with UFOs, it's wonderful. And they should talk about them and kindle them. I think the thing about psychedelics that's so interesting is that my experience with them was that you become you don't become so attached to your ideas and your beliefs. Right. And so which is a big problem in our society is people that get too attached to their their egos get attached to their beliefs as opposed to like, oh, I thought that. I mean, I've made I'm I've made my whole career out of being wrong about things. [2:18:38] correcting them. But I think it's hard because you do. It's really great quality. It's thank you. It's a very but it's still I hate it. I hate being wrong. It's totally natural to hate it. But I do think like having a practice that makes you go, you are not your [2:18:54] Your beliefs. There's something there. You have an existence separate from the things that you wrote on your blog or you were on X and just don't be so attached to them. Right. Don't make them your identity. Yeah. And that it's it's it's actually there's something really quite.

[2:19:09] There's an awful part of when you feel like you got something wrong. But then there's another part where you're like, oh, it feels good to get it right. And you feel clean. And that's like – that's what we should be going for. But it does require – for me, being humble – [2:19:22] about my limitations before some higher power is really important place to begin. Because if you think there's no higher power or that the other one is like souls, we don't talk about souls enough. A new friend of mine at the university was talking about how important it is to really to care for your soul and to care about other people's souls. That's one of the things that Christianity is so good at that you have something divine inside of you connected to something divine outside of you and that your behaviors affect its treatment. And, you know, when you tell people that you're just... [2:19:53] you know, [2:19:54] a meat suit and you're just worm food and your life doesn't matter and that it's all just, you know, random and pointless. [2:20:02] That's a terrible story. It makes people feel terrible. But when you kind of go, there was one of the most beautiful, I loved all the Charlie Kirk videos that went out after his death because there were so many ones where he had these beautiful moments. He's talking to these women that are doing the OnlyFans. [2:20:15] Did you see that one? No. And they're describing – they're trying to shock him and saying just really kind of crude things about their sexuality and how, like, the sex they have, it doesn't matter to them. And he was like, I just don't believe that I think you have a soul. I think God has a purpose for you. What a much lovelier – [2:20:33] way to engage somebody. And it wasn't a, you didn't feel like he was morally condemning them. Right. He was actually saying, God loves you. And so for me, Christianity brings, that is the part of Christianity that I think is so special, but it is hard. I mean, one of the things that this anthropologist that I'm really into is talking about, she says, it's, it's the more the God, the more different the God is from humans, the harder it is to believe in them. And so people like Christians in particular, she would talk about their, even evangelical ones are always

[2:21:00] Complaining about not believing enough and not having enough faith because it is so hard because you have the Holocaust problem, the problem of evil. Why, if the God is all powerful and all good, is he allowing the Holocaust? Why do you allow Hiroshima? Why, you know, these terrible things. And part of the answer for Christians has been, well, because he wants us to exercise free will and to be in touch with our better sides and to realize our potential as as moral beings. [2:21:24] moral humans and moral souls. And that's a pretty good answer. But it is [2:21:30] I was glad to hear her say that people struggle with it because I certainly do as well. Well, I mean – [2:21:36] I think everyone struggles with it. [2:21:39] I'm just – I'm really fascinated by it. I'm fascinated by it because when I go to church and I listen to them talk about various passages in the Bible, my mindset is always like, what was the real experience? Right. [2:21:53] Like what are we missing out of these tales? What are we missing out of these recounting of these experiences? What happened? I don't think it was nothing. [2:22:04] I really don't. I think there's something real to it. And again, it works. That's the main one for me. It's like you want to live a better life? Like if you live as a Christian, you'll have a better life. You'll have a more love-filled, more wonderful life. That's real. And this idea that, oh, it's fairy tales. Yeah. [2:22:25] It... [2:22:26] Is it? [2:22:27] If it's a method for life that gives you a more rich and loving and peaceful life, isn't that better for everybody? Isn't that a real thing? That's a real thing. There's no way you can know whether or not any of the stories in the Bible happened exactly as described. We can't know. So you have to have this leap of faith. And it gets weird. Like Jesus comes back on a white horse like, hey, slow down.

[2:22:54] You know, like Revelations. Book of Revelations is weird. [2:22:58] What's really weird is some of these people that think that – [2:23:01] What's going on in Iran is to light the fire to bring – to have Jesus return, to light the signal fire. Like did you hear those recountings by that – these non-commissioned officers that went into these briefings, combat briefings? Oh, no. Okay. Here's one of them because I saved it because it's so kooky that I read it and I was like, wait, what the fuck did they say to him? Because it's so crazy. [2:23:31] apocalyptic movements [2:23:33] uh, doing a lot of good in the world. So, yeah, that's probably better off. Most of it. I think a lot of, [2:23:39] Christians have... [2:23:40] Ignore the book of revelations. I [2:23:43] Yeah, I think focusing too heavily on that particular book probably leads to bad outcomes. Okay, so this was the story that I wrote. This was in Yahoo. I'll send this to you, Jeremy, so you can get this information. [2:23:54] So we can put this up on the board. Did you find the thing? Okay. He urged us to tell our troops that this was all part of God's – now this is a combat readiness briefing. Urged us to tell our troops this is all part of God's plan, and he specifically referenced numerous citations of the book of Revelations referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. [2:24:16] He said that President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth. Wow.

[2:24:25] And they said that the guy was saying this had a giant smile on his face, which made it all the weirder. [2:24:30] Like, like... [2:24:31] See if you could find that in there. Does it say that? [2:24:34] No, it's not in that particular article. This is just military.com. It sounds like someone complained about it. Oh, yeah, a bunch of people complained. There's actually like a lawsuit. Yeah. Religious freedom law. You risk like the whole self-fulfilling prophecy with that one. Well, it's all just like, what are you talking about? Wait a second. What are you doing? What machines, what weapons do you control? Yeah, there's a lot of fucking religious kooks. So it's not just – and also, that is not how Jesus Christ would handle it. Let's go bomb Iran. That's how Jesus is going to come back. Like, do you think he would tell you that's the right way to do it? [2:25:04] It doesn't sound very Jesus-y. Right. Jesus-y. It doesn't sound very Jesus-y. Like, how did you interpret that in the text? [2:25:08] Okay, before we – so we're deep into this show. So the Epstein stuff. [2:25:13] All right. So what is your take on this? All right. Well, so I changed your position. Yeah, I've changed, I think, uh, spent a bunch of time with the files. Um, [2:25:22] I will say, I think I did do a piece where I do think that the shrimp... [2:25:26] is a code word. [2:25:27] for for young women um i'm pretty sure about that what do you think pizza is a code word well that was okay so then i did a i did i had i had this article about code words in the epstein files and i did the shrimps and then i had some stuff about pizza and grape juice in there about grape soda and my co-author alex was like dude you can't go if you can't go full pizza gate you know like you gotta you gotta be like so we kept it out and then the times mentioned the pizza thing so i wrote some on x about it but i ended up taking it down because i was like i don't really know this one

[2:25:57] What weirded me about the pizza one was where his urologist... [2:26:01] was like, take your... [2:26:03] Erection dysfunction pills. And then we'll go out and get pizza and grape soda. And I was like, that is creepy. [2:26:10] as hell. [2:26:13] The shrimp one... [2:26:15] I'm like... [2:26:16] 95% that means young women because you just see how they talk about it. I think I proved it in my piece. There's other ones like people are like the jerky is like cannibalism and whatever. It's like, well, it didn't help that the restaurant owner was like – the restaurant's name was like cannibal and something. But I'm skeptical that that's what that was. Well, you would be skeptical unless you were part of some of these fucking bizarre satanic rituals and then you would go, oh my god, it's real. Like there are – look, people have sacrificed people, right? [2:26:46] In human history? Yeah, oh sure, of course. And there have been satanic rituals throughout history. Can we agree to that? Sure. Okay. [2:26:54] There has been cannibalism in history. We agree to that? Okay. Unfortunately, a lot, actually. There was a lot, yeah. [2:27:00] Why wouldn't we think they're talking about that? [2:27:03] We don't want to believe it, right? Is that what it is? We don't want to believe that these people – [2:27:09] these multimillionaires and billionaires that go to this island and engage in all this crazy shit aren't doing something like child sacrifice or cannibalism. Well, let's start with the thing that I think a lot of us thought it was, which is that it was an intelligence community – [2:27:25] sex blackmail operation. That's what...

[2:27:28] made it for me a story. I mean, a creepy guy. [2:27:32] Yeah. [2:27:33] doing creepy things. We call that a dog bites man story. What makes it a man bites dog story is that you kind of go, wow, it's like Mossad and CIA running a honeypot. I mean, that's the premise of Whitley Webb's two volume book, One Nation Under Blackmail. But when you look at it, [2:27:50] Like, we don't see that. We see... [2:27:52] We see one case where... [2:27:55] Epstein emails himself something that sounds like it's in the voice of the Bill Gates science advisor, Boris Kovac. [2:28:00] I believe is the name. And in it, they talk about, oh, you know, it's the famous email where he says, oh, you know, I got STDs. It says you got STDs from Russian hookers or from Russian women. And then you tried to slip antibiotics or you want to meet a slip antibiotics and we'll lend his drink. [2:28:17] And Melinda, like, [2:28:19] they asked her about it, it was awful [2:28:21] um [2:28:22] It doesn't, like... [2:28:23] That's not – it's weird what that is. So first of all, it's not even clear what that is. Hold on a second. We're just talking about emails. Yeah. [2:28:29] Right. Right. [2:28:31] Who knows what was said? [2:28:34] Just from the email, we know that there at least implies that he's got dirt on people and that he is exercising – [2:28:43] He's doing something with this dirt that he has on Epstein or on Bill Gates, rather. Yeah, although. So we're very limited in the amount of data that we possess, right? Because we just have emails between him and other people. Inside those emails, we find a lot of creepy shit. We find that one description where he was talking to this woman where she said, I'm doing investigating a story about an island where they bring children for sex.

[2:29:13] that person is me. [2:29:15] Well, he was talking about the rumors and gossip about him. But he wasn't saying that he's bringing children to his island for sex. But that is what he said. [2:29:24] But if you look at the text – [2:29:27] No, no, no, no. [2:29:28] She said, I'm doing a story on – [2:29:31] a guy who brings children to his island for sex, and he says, she almost had a heart attack when I told her, that person is me. The person that... You're being charitable. But you're being charitable, because that's not what the text says. What the text says is, [2:29:51] Someone's bringing children to an island. I told her that person was me. He didn't say, I told her that's a bullshit rumor. I let her know that's not true. But that's very much in his style. I mean, look, let's back up to the intelligence. But wait a minute. Why would you dismiss that? We can pull it up and look at it. I just think – [2:30:08] I think what we see from the files, and I think Mike Benz has sort of pointed out the ways in which Epstein might have been a contractor or a financier or somebody hiding money for the intelligence community. Beyond that... [2:30:21] I don't see... [2:30:22] any evidence that he was doing much for the intelligence community, if at all. But you're only getting emails and only half of the emails. [2:30:31] Right. So there's only three million emails that have been released. There's another three million that the FBI possesses that they're not releasing. Right. One hundred percent is possible. So we're making something to make. Why would you draw any conclusions based on only 50 percent of the data? And then if there is 50 percent of the data that hasn't been released, why is that way worse? Because this stuff is fucking nuts like this. This is nuts. Like take your erection pills so we can go get grape soda.

[2:30:58] Okay, what? And this lady is investigating a place where they – an island where they bring children for sex. I told her it was me. What? Well, we should put that one up. I want to look at that one. Okay. [2:31:11] um... [2:31:13] You're talking about – so first of all, I think the picture is of a guy that is – [2:31:19] fully in charge of his life and he's doing he's like he is like amazing at getting people to love him and care about him people call him their best friend in florida clearly he was abusing girls and was you know busted for that i think he was doing that because he's a pervert um i don't think i didn't see i don't see blackmail coming out of that and then you get to later and you've got okay you've got the bill gates thing which doesn't even appear to be from epstein it appears to be [2:31:49] science advisor wanted Gates to pay for like a bigger apartment for him in New York. It appeared to be part of him threatening Gates to get something that Boris wanted. So maybe Epstein was advising him on it. But I mean, to have a... [2:32:03] The other thing I'm struck by these emails, Joe, is that there are so many different attorneys, people at the FBI, people in the Eastern District, the Southern District, the Florida Southern District. They would all have to be in on it. And I'm skeptical because – Why would they all have to be in on it? Well, because they would – they're in these – I mean they're in this – they're reviewing the information. They're trying to bring – [2:32:25] They're trying to bring action against him. [2:32:27] Well, it depends on who are the powerful people that are implicated and what kind of influence they have.

[2:32:34] over what gets released and what doesn't get released. Clearly, names were redacted that are powerful people that are not victims. So that shows you right there that there's some influence. But there's a reason to do that. Why? Because they're not guilty. Okay, what about the one where the guy says, where Epstein says, I like the torture video? [2:32:54] He probably did. I think someone did find the torture video. Why would you redact the name of the person who sent you a torture video if you're not trying to protect a powerful person? Yeah, that's the sultan. Is that right? Okay, but that was – someone had to just figure that out. I mean, look, the redactions are sloppy. No, no, no. That's evidence that you're trying to protect a powerful person. [2:33:14] Well, but they didn't, though, in a lot of cases. But they did right there. Yeah. I mean, the redactions, they were making them. I mean, it was like a lot of powerful people's name. Yeah. But I mean. [2:33:26] I mean, look at like we're in the midst. I mean, literally, the people that are being canceled for this, like Peter Atiyah, these people are like victims of we're in the middle of a complete, you know, you know, moral panic. I mean, we're now it's like Me Too version two. I mean, people are having to leave boards. I mean, look, these are people I don't like. I'll just be honest, like if part of me hesitated because I don't like Larry Summers. I don't like Bill Gates. I don't care about Sarah Ferguson. [2:33:51] I didn't say anything. Then they came for Peter Atiyah. It's a little bit like... [2:33:56] Like, Peter Attia, like... [2:33:58] He didn't do anything wrong. He just lost his job with CBS. And he's sort of now they're under this cloud and people go, oh, but he was in the hospital and his wife was – he was with – his wife was in the hospital.

[2:34:10] What are we doing here? We're getting involved in... [2:34:13] Peter Atiyah's personal life, but he has to get fired for that. I mean, it's gone way too far. Sarah Ferguson had to step down even though she said, these people, I don't like them. These are not people I agree with or think their behavior is, but I don't see. So they're not guilty of crime. Yeah, they're not. They were all making a big deal out of like, well, so first of all, let me just say, I'm glad they released the files. Tighten that thing down. I think they. You keep moving that thing around. Every time you do it, it bumps. [2:34:43] I'm sick. [2:34:45] I, I, uh... [2:34:47] I think, like... [2:34:48] I mean, I'm glad the files were released. There was definitely... [2:34:52] problems with the redactions. There was also a case where the members of Congress were trying to get stuff redacted. Names got redacted of people that... [2:34:58] Like I know in one case there were people that were getting licenses for guns that had nothing to do with Epstein on a list. In another case, other people's names were revealed who were not – [2:35:06] guilty of anything. So that's why you protect those people. I think we, you go, everybody, the logic right now is that anybody who had any interaction with Epstein had to have known of all the abuse he was doing and are somehow responsible for it. I think that's not right. Okay. But a lot of these people were hanging out with him and doing business with him after he was arrested. So this is all post-2008 and it was very public. Okay. So then what is our view of people that [2:35:33] Do the crime and serve the time. I mean, the left view has been that – Stop right there. He didn't serve any time. [2:35:39] He served a year. Okay. He did not go to jail for a year. He did house arrest. Yes. It was a very sweetheart deal. And the prosecutor – was it the prosecuting attorney or whoever it was – was told that he was intelligence. And this is why they were giving him the sweetheart deal. That was – by the way, I looked into that. Yeah? Yeah. We looked into that one. And that was heard secondhand. Oh. So we don't even – that wasn't even heard from Acosta directly. Someone said that they heard Acosta say that and they told the Vicki Ward. And I believe her source is anonymous. Okay.

[2:36:09] Yeah. So that's weak. And, you know, Mike, I mean, when Mike Benz was in here and Mike has done a deep dive of this, he's sort of like, look, at best you get Epstein tied up with intelligence. Yeah. [2:36:18] With the Iran-Contra stuff. Right. But he wasn't – I mean there's two things to see here. With his relationship to the intelligence community, he was at best a contractor financier, which means he's not an important player in deciding to cover clandestine operations. It was the – it's the head of state. He said he killed cold fusion. [2:36:35] Thank you. [2:36:36] I mean – He said he killed Pons, his work on Cold Fusion. [2:36:42] I mean, I don't know. Did he? I mean, ColdFusion, they keep doing it, right? No, they haven't done it yet. Well, I know Carl Page, the founder, the brother of the... But he stated that he killed ColdFusion research. Because he cut off funding for it? Yeah. Well, but there was... He manipulated people... [2:37:00] I don't know that. Well, I mean – He say he killed it. Why would he kill it? Because it didn't work. Or maybe it did work and it's problematic that it does work because it kills all these people that have all this other money in various energy modalities. I just – I mean I go fusion is like a whole – I mean the idea that we have a secret – that we've secretly tapped cold fusion and are hiding it for some reason. Or that he was on the way to breaking through to cold fusion and then they killed all of his research. But why?

[2:37:30] energy. I just don't buy that you could, first of all, that technology is super difficult to get nuclear [2:37:37] Fission was this enormous undertaking huge numbers of people. The cold fusion stuff was always the cold fusion stuff is really fringe. I mean, it was like we're going to be in the lab and doing cool, you know, but you're not a physicist. So how do you know that? Well, I mean, I interview a lot of physicists and talk about it. I mean, the big fusion projects are incredibly difficult. They keep announcing advances on them. They can't get them. Cold fusion is not even considered a mainstream fusion project. So to assume that there's some [2:38:04] Secret, and I just think this is why I have a problem with the whole reverse engineering thing, is I just kind of go... [2:38:09] You'd have to have... [2:38:11] So many people working on it and covering it for such a long time. I don't know how you get away with that. Well, what if he was on the verge of a breakthrough, but this guy steps in and stops funding and put some leverage on the university? Clearly, he had dirt on a bunch of people that were at high levels of many universities. That's why a bunch of these guys had to step down. [2:38:30] Didn't the head of Harvard step down? I think it's exaggerating. Didn't the head of Harvard step down? [2:38:35] Because of him? [2:38:36] Wasn't there a connection between Jeffrey Epstein? Well, I mean Larry Summers, you mean? Yeah. Well, Larry Summers was – he had to step down because he made those remarks about women as president. And then he just had to step down as professor and – [2:38:49] And I say this, look, I say this genuinely as someone that is not a Larry Summers fan. I don't think I think it's ugly what he did. It's terrible. He was trying to get advice from Larry Summers about how to bed a Chinese economist. And they were gross in their emails. And it's terrible. But I don't think that you lose a job at Harvard over that. I don't think that Peter Tia should lose his job at CBS over that. We've got that's I understand. And I see what you're saying. But what I'm saying is clearly he had influence over some very high and powerful people.

[2:39:19] Also exaggerated his influence. He took a lot of credit for Santa Fe Institute, which was a lot of other people. I mean, he's really he's really interesting and smart. Like he gave a thing to Bannon talking to Bannon about it. That was really interesting. But he was also Steve Pinker talked about him as a kibitzer, like a kind of a bullshitter. And he was like we also saw in the files and it really overlooked. We saw how he made his money. [2:39:49] Ariana DeRothschild. He hires Catherine Rumler, who was Obama's White House chief counsel, and she goes and makes a deal at the Department of Justice, $45 million fine for the Rothschilds, [2:40:00] $10 million for Katherine Rumler, $25 million for Jeffrey Epstein. Everyone's like, where did his money come from? Uh... [2:40:07] doing deals like that. Like, you realize, I mean, one of the things, Succession actually had a little... [2:40:12] little subplot about it. Like there's a few people in the world that do these crazy high level deals, like often like mergers and acquisitions that have these obscene fees because they're taking some tiny percentage. I've seen. [2:40:24] was operating. I think the thing we didn't realize is that when you read the files is the levels of which Epstein was operating. I mean, his his social and emotional intelligence is just off the charts, which is often rare among somebody that's that good analytically, someone that really understands like investments in the economy to be so. And he was a master manipulator. [2:40:44] So I don't think it's... [2:40:46] I don't think it's fair to say to people you had an association with him after he's convicted of this crime. Rich guys –

[2:40:55] Look, we have a totally separate system of justice for rich people. I think we've known that for a really long time. It's terrible. I condemn it. We should find solutions to it. That's what Epstein used to get out of it. I don't see any evidence that intelligence helped him. [2:41:08] We've got other problems. The victims, Virginia Jaffray, she claimed that she had sex with Dershowitz. She then goes, oh, I was wrong about that. I mean there's a lot of those victim testimonials that are untrustworthy. So you get yourself in a situation where you start to put – Some of them were probably prostitutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the other one. I did some reporting where we found a 14-year-old girl who was being trafficked on the streets – [2:41:35] She turned 15 in the process of us reporting on it. We were covering these PIs. They get the police involved. The police go get her. [2:41:42] you know she's [2:41:44] orphaned. She goes and backs and lives with her aunt. [2:41:47] She's back on the street, voluntarily back on the street. Nobody wants to talk about it. It's like you go rescue people and – [2:41:54] They're in that world. So these situations are much more complex than [2:41:58] I think the final thing on Epstein that kind of – [2:42:01] made me question is that I, like a lot of other people, had assumed that someone murdered him. But you start looking at the evidence for that. [2:42:07] Look, maybe there are more will come out. And even this last round, last few days, there's some new things that people point to, but they actually are not actually evidence of it. [2:42:15] They said... [2:42:16] You know, Epstein's brother's attorney or Epstein's brother's examiner said that that he broke his hyoid bone and the hyoid bone bone is not usually broken and in hangings, only in strangulations. Actually, it is broken and hangs, particularly for older people. Broken in three places. Yeah. And that I mean, and that's like and it's low on his neck. Yeah. And they and that happens. Also, the lady who is the guard deposited money into her. I saw that. And that isn't what does that mean?

[2:42:43] Okay. Well, she also Googled his name before he died. All that's totally – it's like let me do it. Why are you dismissing? I don't understand why you're dismissing this. I'm not dismissing it. I'm saying – Well, hold on. You are. But hold on. You are because if you do have a guard and all of a sudden this guard acquires several payments. She made several deposits. One of them was $5,000 just 10 days before he died. And then the cameras are cut. [2:43:10] Okay, and then they mysteriously don't pay attention to the cell of one of the most important defendants of any case, any gigantic public case involving enormously famous public figures. And then this guy hangs himself while he's on suicide watch? Now remember, he tried to commit suicide. I understand, but why are you not letting me finish what I'm saying? [2:43:31] Because that alone is weird. [2:43:34] That alone is weird, that the cameras are cut, that there's no video of it. [2:43:38] The whole thing is weird. [2:43:39] You don't think it's weird? [2:43:40] Well, I think it's weird that this guy that he just finds a way to hang himself in this cage. I thought I had that same story. I was like, the cameras are cut. The security guards are asleep. All those things are true. All those things are true. [2:43:54] is also true. [2:43:56] that the cameras went out a long time before that night. It didn't just go out that night before. [2:44:00] Security guards fall asleep at night all the time. He... [2:44:04] Yeah. [2:44:05] Attempted suicide, I believe 18 days before. 18 days before he said that his roommate tried to kill him. Did you know that? Do you know his roommate was a cop that had killed four people in contract killings? His cop roommate, his cellmate, was a murderer. He was a guy who was a drug dealing cop who had killed four people in contract killings.

[2:44:26] And that was his fucking jailmate. And 18 days before he said that guy tried to kill him. But he said that's his. Is there any. Look at that guy. Yeah, that is his fucking cellmate. Why would you put a guy who's one of the most high profile defendants in any case ever? [2:44:41] in a cell with a hired killer who's a giant gorilla, like this huge fucking jacked Italian guy. But he wasn't in the cell with him that night. He was by himself in the cell that night. He was the guy who 18 days before Epstein said tried to kill him. But Epstein tried to kill himself. [2:44:58] I don't think there's any doubt about that, right? I don't know if there's – I've never seen him say it, but I do know that he said that guy tried to kill him, and they found him unresponsive 18 days before. He said that guy tried to kill him. And couldn't he have lied about that? That guy was trying to get money. Couldn't he have lied about that? [2:45:16] Video outside cell during Jeffrey Epstein's first suicide attempt no longer exists. How weird. Yeah. Why would he lie about that? He's in a cell with a guy who he's already saying this guy is trying to extort him. He's already saying this guy is trying to get money from him. And this guy is a known killer. He's killed four people in contract killings. How did you not know about that? I will say it's possible. How did you not know about that? [2:45:41] I did know about that. You knew about the guy being a contract killer? Well, no, I mean, I knew that story, but I mean, he didn't have a soulmate at the night of his death, right? [2:45:49] That was one of the mistakes they made is that because he was on supposed to be on suicide watch, he was supposed to have a cellmate, didn't have a cellmate. I think that look, I know, but 18 days before he did have a cellmate and 18 days before he said that guy tried to kill him. But 18 days before he tried to commit suicide. That's my understanding. I don't know if that's true, though. I don't know if that's true. I don't know why they would put him in jail with a contract killer.

[2:46:10] Well, I mean, how many – who's in that jail? Aren't the people in that jail pretty rough? His cellmate is a contract killer. [2:46:18] Why would he be in a cell with a cop who's a contract killer? I mean, aren't there a lot of bad guys in that? The night Jeffrey Epstein claimed his cellmate tried to kill him. New documents reveal Jeffrey Epstein claimed his cellmate tried to kill him in an incident before his death. [2:46:33] Yeah, but we don't know if it's true. Yeah. Why are you dismissing it, though? I'm not dismissing it. Joe, look, maybe more evidence will come out. I'm just saying, look, if you look at the evidence we have... But you're looking to dismiss it. No, I'm saying... [2:46:45] I was confident it was a homicide, and now I'm not. Were you aware of this? [2:46:49] Yeah, of course. All that. You were aware that he tried to kill us. Of course. You were aware that he said that. Well, how come you never brought it up before? You seem shocked when I brought it up. Well, because because my understanding is it was a suicide attempt 18 days before. OK. [2:47:03] But if he said this guy tried to kill him 18 days before, why didn't you take that into consideration? No, it is. I mean, I'm just saying that was all that was like, no, when I go seem like you took it into consideration. And you're looking to dismiss. I didn't know. I my view earlier was that it was a homicide because the hyoid bone doesn't break when you have hangings. He said he didn't want to commit suicide. The video went out. The security guards are asleep. [2:47:33] of this by the inspector general. So the number of people that would have had to been involved in this conspiracy and cover up is very large. And it's a large number of people who are in this job

[2:47:44] to be do-gooders. And so I'm very, I mean, that's, look, maybe there will, so maybe there was some evidence that will come out. They're not in the job to be do-gooders. Oh, yeah, they are. Sometimes they're in the job to be do-gooders. Sometimes they're influenced by very powerful figures that want a particular result. Yeah. Does that not happen? But we underestimate. But hold on a second. Does that not happen in the real world? Of course, of course. It does, right? And wouldn't you imagine if you're dealing with multiple billionaires that may be compromised [2:48:14] the times that they would want to exert that kind of influence it's possible and like i said in our piece we wrote it's possible but i think at this point we don't know i don't think we have the evidence either way and and that's for me that's the change i went from i think it was a homicide to now i don't know i didn't understand that he committed suicide 18 days before no no no he didn't commit suicide we should check his cellmate tried to kill him 18 days before that's what he said [2:48:40] Right? [2:48:41] They found him unresponsive. He said, my cellmate tried to kill me. Yeah, but how do we know that? Why would we think? OK, and then was it reported that it was an attempted suicide to try to dismiss the fact that a cellmate was trying to kill him because they wanted a cellmate to kill him? We don't know. [2:48:58] But you can't dismiss that. The psychologist thought he was suicidal. [2:49:02] They... [2:49:03] You know, I think my understanding, he could have lied about the room. He didn't want to have a roommate. [2:49:08] Um, that's like why, and they didn't have a roommate. Why would you want to have a roommate who was a fucking contract killer? Who was a sociopathic cop who killed four guys?

[2:49:18] But if you're a contract killer and you're in Epstein's cell, why would you want Epstein to die in your cell? Because you want to kill him because people are going to give you like extra cigarettes at the commissary. Do we have any evidence for that? Who fucking knows? No, but who fucking knows? Yeah, but we don't know. It's a guy who already kills people and he's in jail forever. He's going to be in jail forever. Yeah. [2:49:38] So for that guy, you say, will you kill that guy for me? Like, it's not even much of a stretch. It's not much of a stretch that Epstein would have killed himself. [2:49:45] It's not much of a stress that that guy killed him either if he's telling the truth that there was a report 18 days before that that guy tried to kill him. We just don't know. [2:49:53] I mean, that's my view. We certainly don't know, but I don't understand why you would want to make the conclusion that he tried to kill himself. It's not a conclusion. And that this guy, who's a contract killer, was not... [2:50:02] actually trying to kill him when he said he was 18 days before. Well, Joe, I mean, I don't please don't misrepresent. I'm saying I don't know. And that the change for me is going from really looking like a homicide to really not knowing because there's some evidence that I had not considered before. Right. You know, the guy who did the autopsy was the guy from that autopsy show on HBO. [2:50:23] who his name is Michael Baden and he was famous. The official autopsy. No, no, no. The one his brother authorized because he was famous for catching people. I don't think he did an autopsy though. He was a medical examiner. He's a medical examiner. He's also famous for, he's also paid. Sight conducted a post-suicide watch report. Epstein denied suicidality. [2:50:41] and stated, I have no interest in killing myself, and that it would be crazy to take his life, although he was depressed and unhappy about his current legal situation. He was told he will remain on psychological observation in the near term. He said, look, and you see even there, he says he didn't recall he got the marks on his neck, so he didn't blame that on him. But no, no, no, that's here. But the other details from the other report said that he complained that the guy tried to kill himself,

[2:51:11] to try to kill him. [2:51:12] Can you go back? Okay, we can find that again. [2:51:16] I don't think – but, Joe, I think that – I don't think that you've got it. I don't think you've got it. I don't think you've got the – I don't think you've – I don't think we've nailed the case that it was a homicide at all. Well, I'm not saying that I know. Yeah. But I'm saying – Okay, so then we agree we don't know. Yes, but you're dismissing these major factors of him being in a cell with a contract killer, him saying 18 days before the guy tried to kill him, then finding him unresponsive that someone tried to strangle him 18 days before. Yeah, but, I mean, there's just – you can make a case either way is my point. [2:51:46] You certainly can, but at a certain point in time when enough circumstantial evidence, it's fucking weird, like the cameras being down, the guards being asleep. The cameras were down. I think I don't want to don't quote me on exactly, but they weren't down like that day before or something. They were down for a while before and the security guards fall asleep all the time. [2:52:03] Uh-huh. [2:52:04] What did you find about the... [2:52:07] The roommate trying to kill him? I mean, this is like their report of it. I was trying to find his, but this is in this report right here. [2:52:15] He was found in the fetal position. [2:52:17] Laying on the floor snoring.

[2:52:23] had tried to kill him and that had been harassing him. Taglioni claimed he had been asleep and woke up to see Ev's team with a string around his neck. Right. Does that make fucking sense? Well, actually, but Joe, just to... [2:52:34] He says the guy tried to kill him. [2:52:42] So Epstein doesn't want to have – if you want to kill yourself, you don't want a cellmate. Right? [2:52:46] So you can interpret the same amount of facts. If you want a guy to go back and finish the job, you shut the cameras off and you open the cell and you let this guy kill him. But they shut the cameras off when they shut the cameras off, though. [2:52:59] It doesn't matter. There's no – No, it does matter. There's no – Because the machine broke. Even the video that's there has been edited. The one video they show of the outside of the cell, a minute's missing from it. There's a lot of weird shit to it, man. I agree, but it's not – where you should arrive on, in my view, where the facts lead you is that we don't know. [2:53:17] And so that's that's that's a difference to me than just saying that's safe. Well, no, but it is kind of fucking weird that he's in a cell with a contract killer. Kind of fucking weird that he made a complaint that the contract killer tried to kill him 18 days before. Not if you're trying to get. Did they remove that guy from his cell? Is that what happens? He did. Yeah, he's by himself, obviously, the night he killed himself or was killed. [2:53:38] Or was killed. Find the did you find the email where he's talking about the lady on the island where she's saying that we brought children to an island that someone brought children to an island? Remember, he's faced with life in prison. He loved his decadent, hedonistic life. There's plenty of motivations for him to kill himself rather than live in prison the rest of his life. Right. And remember, I think it was like a day or two before he lost his bail appeal.

[2:54:07] So he thought he'd get on bail. He didn't even get on bail. He's going to be stuck there. [2:54:10] Mm-hmm. Um... [2:54:12] The psychologist didn't believe him. She thought he was suicidal. [2:54:16] And so there are. So one way you interpret it is that they messed up. [2:54:20] They did a bad job. They should have known that he was suicidal and they should have had a roommate there. The guards should not have fallen asleep. They should have fixed the video camera. I just can't imagine you're such a high-profile defendant and you're not watching him like a fucking hawk. [2:54:35] I would imagine that a guy like that would be in protective custody with no fucking shoelaces, no way to hang himself. I think you overestimate our prison system. I would think that you would do your very best in this case to make sure that this guy is watched. They didn't. They bring him to trial. I mean, they didn't. They should have had a roommate in his cell and they didn't. Well – [2:54:56] They put him in a fucking cell with a killer. So it seems a little bit more than that. But when you say it that way, you make it sound like the killer was in the cell the night he was killed. I make it sound like this killer was in the cell with him when he said the killer tried to kill him. Right. But or he... [2:55:10] That's trying to kill himself. Isn't that a little weird? Why didn't the guy do it then? Why didn't it work? Well, he probably choked him unconscious and thought he was dead and he survived. They found him unresponsive. Or he tried to kill himself. And then when they said, why did you try to kill himself? He blames it on the roommate so he doesn't have to have a roommate anymore. [2:55:27] It's possible. Yeah. So find that email where he says that it's him. I'm trying to. [2:55:34] I don't have access to the files right now. The thing I was using is gone. Yeah. It's gone? Yeah.

[2:55:39] uh, [2:55:40] Ian Carroll's app was really good. They've taken it down because they're going to make it public. Now it was only in data. J-Mail. I know. I was digging through that too. I've got so many fucking tabs open. You guys have moved around a lot. So if you kind of go – so for me, if I go, we don't know if it was a homicide or suicide. The intelligence community work was – [2:55:59] appears to be of a long time ago and he was a contractor. We don't have any other evidence of a sex blackmail operation other than that email. Now, there is one other thing that I thought was – [2:56:10] So one... [2:56:11] for the theory that he's a blackmailer is that he put – like we have emails of him putting cameras in Kleenex boxes, hidden cameras in Kleenex boxes with motion detectors. Was that in order to engage in a blackmail operation? [2:56:26] Or was he just a pervert? He didn't have to blackmail people. [2:56:32] Okay. Your friend told me about the projects he's doing researching a really bad guy who gets children for sex sent to his island. [2:56:40] She almost fainted when I told her that person is me. [2:56:45] That seems pretty clear. I think – no, no. I think he's saying that she's writing a story – [2:56:51] It was about him, but I don't think he's admitting that. [2:56:54] He's bringing children to his island for sex. I don't know about you, but if I was sending an email and I was talking about someone researching someone who's sending children to an island for sex, I would also include that I let her know that that was bullshit. Well, she ends up coming in and meeting with them, right? You've seen the follow-up to this? No. So she ends up coming to meet with her, and I don't know if he, like –

[2:57:17] gives her money or something or funds her, but it's like... [2:57:21] Yeah, I mean, without justifying, I mean, I think that after 2008... [2:57:28] There's not – I don't think there's any evidence and I could be wrong. There's not a lot of evidence that anybody underage came to – that Epstein abused anybody under 18. And I'm not defending abusing women over 18, but that did seem like a pretty big change. Epstein associate found dead in Paris prison cell. After he said he was going to flip. [2:57:49] Oh, shocker. [2:57:50] Weird. Maybe he got sad, too. Well, maybe. He's one of the co-conspirators. I mean, people kill themselves a lot. You know, psychopaths also kill themselves a lot. [2:57:59] Also, people get people killed because they're going to flip. It's possible and it's just – we just need evidence for it. Yeah. Yeah. [2:58:07] So this is really – if you're going to kill somebody, you should probably make it so that there's not a lot of evidence. [2:58:12] Right? [2:58:13] Yeah, I mean, in this case... [2:58:15] Did he kill himself? He hung in a cell. Oh. Hung himself. A lot of sheets in there. Hunged himself. Yeah. [2:58:22] Hang himself. Yeah. However you want to word it. So then it's like – They should make those sheets out of him. So then the theory would be what? That Bill Gates hired a contract killer to – I didn't say that. Or who did it then? Who knows? Yeah. Well, who knows what – who knew what about what and when? I don't know. I don't think it's the intelligence community because we're not seeing – I just – we're not – I mean, Mike came in here and you guys talked for a long time and Mike's not suggesting. Well, there's no evidence that it was –

[2:58:47] I mean we don't have like clear cut. He did this and they killed these guys because of that. We don't have that. Right. Yeah. [2:58:55] So, I mean – But we also don't have three million files. We also – like the things that we don't – he doesn't need blackmail to make money. Well, he also doesn't need blackmail in order to be able to get people to do things and influence them. And if you have video of people fucking people and doing things they're not supposed to be doing and you're giving them drugs and you got them on this island for these wild parties, they're more inclined to do things that would do stuff for you. [2:59:25] They had that. I was always very suspicious of that. The fact that he's talking about hidden cameras and motion is very bad. [2:59:31] Well, that was the narrative before that there was thousands of hours of horrible videos. Yeah. Right? So it's possible that there was – now, I don't know that – [2:59:41] I would be – Visitors describe a bathroom reminiscent of James Bond movies hidden beneath a stairway lined with lead to provide shelter from attack and supplied with closed-circuit television screens and a telephone, both concealed in a cabinet behind the sink, wrote the Times. The townhouse is now reportedly owned by Wexner's even more mysterious protege, Jeffrey Epstein. That was from 2003. So this is even before his arrest. Yeah. And also the other part of it, think of this. Remember when Jeff Bezos was blackmailed? [3:00:11] And he was just like – Yes. He was like, I'm just going to – Well, that was just love letters to – in Lawrence Sanchez. They were pretty racy. Yeah. But I mean it was – still, it was private, personal things where he was sending them to a woman he loved. It shows the risks of engaging in blackmail.

[3:00:29] But that turned out to be a dummy. That was like someone's brother, right? But Epstein, in other words, if you use it, if you actually use your blackmail, I think it's very hard then to maintain your reputation as somebody. Now, maybe it was sort of hovering, never articulated. He was attracting people. I mean what's so striking about it is he's attracting people to him. He's got all this Bon Ami. Oh, come hang out with Chomsky and Ehud Barak and all these people. It's like a really good time. [3:00:59] I think then being like, oh, I have blackmail material on you. You need to do it. I mean he's getting people to do what he wants them to do for money, for feeling like good vibes, being in on some Israeli peace talks. I don't then see him going around and maybe – look, again, like I totally – maybe I just haven't seen the evidence that he's going around being like, oh, I have blackmail material on you. You have to do what I want. [3:01:23] He got Clinton. He probably got. Why do you think he's filming everybody then? [3:01:27] Thank you. [3:01:28] That is he could be a pervert. [3:01:30] I mean, there's plenty of evidence of perversion, right? Oh, the ranch. Investigators are finally looking to Jeffrey Epstein's New Mexico ranch. Federal authorities apparently never searched the property, but now state authorities will reopen a 2019 investigation. About time, New Mexico. That's great. [3:01:47] It's great. Someone on Twitter or X has a very long – I was reading it earlier and got bored, but it's very long about the link with the lottery. [3:01:55] Oh, yeah. How they won the lottery. That's weird. Wait till that... If that's accurate. Weird. It's weird. I agree. That one's crazy. I mean, Mike also points out that he...

[3:02:05] was leased this incredible mansion in New York by the State Department. But then the State Department, like, sued him. [3:02:11] So it's, you know, they're like, he, if he was like, really, Les Wexner, give him a house in Manhattan. [3:02:17] And then – well, didn't that – didn't the big house – that was the – this was a previous mansion. So the people are just giving them fucking mansions? What about that thing I told you about someone found that the person who notarized that $10 transfer of the house conveniently filmed like the best – [3:02:32] 9-11 footage. [3:02:33] And those are the three million – like the timing of those missing files is right around the 2001-99 time period. I think that what the files are important is that we saw he's able to make his money as a high-level fixer. We saw people were really into him. People loved him. He was magnetic. He's able to get people to do things that he wants without using that as a tool. And we're not seeing – [3:02:59] I just don't see – I don't think we're seeing any signs or footprints or any of that of engaging in blackmail. We have the cameras. We don't have half of the files. [3:03:10] What we have is weird. The grape soda, the shrimp, the pizza references, the jerky, all that stuff is weird. This lady saying that there's an island where a bad guy is bringing children for sex. She almost fainted when I said that person's me. All this stuff is kind of fucked. Would you admit it's kind of fucked? The shrimps one, they're definitely talking about they're objectifying women. Children for sex, don't you think that's kind of fucked? [3:03:33] I think it's I think that he was I mean, my interpreter, I mean, one interpretation of it is that, yeah, he's freely admitting on an email.

[3:03:42] that he's trafficking children. I find that difficult to believe. That you would put that – I mean, if you're going to say that he doesn't put the blackmail stuff in email, but he's going to put it in an email – [3:03:51] that he's bringing children to the island. I mean, I think he's being sarcastic there. [3:03:56] I think he's saying, oh, that guy is me. Like, that's what they say about me. Why wouldn't you elaborate? I mean, if you're sending this to someone who knows you. The person he sends it to knows that it's not true. How? That's right. [3:04:10] I mean, I think that person works for him, right? Masha? Is that one of the women that he had? I don't know. [3:04:15] I just... [3:04:16] I don't think that's him saying I'm... Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. All right. We've got to wrap this up. Anything else? I got one. Someone gave me a video. I thought I'd... [3:04:27] I can share it with you guys. Of what? A UFO video. Oh, okay. How do we make it a tradition to end every sesh with a – can I send it to Jamie? Yeah, you could airdrop it. [3:04:39] Is it compelling? More compelling than Yahweh's video? You don't like the Yahweh video? That was amazing. That was kind of interesting. All right. He's fun. Is it compelling? All right. You guys will decide. All right. [3:04:51] Or no, here I send it to... [3:04:53] Oh, can I ask you something? Yeah. I was curious about. What? [3:04:56] Oh, I was going to say, Elon. [3:04:59] You think Elon knows more than he's letting on about UAPs? Yes. How do you know that? [3:05:05] Well, because he works with NASA. [3:05:07] Thank you. [3:05:07] He knows something. Also, some people have told me that he knows some things. But don't you ask him privately? He don't tell me shit. I got a big mouth. I asked somebody that was high up in his operation. Yeah? We were on the record, but I won't reveal who they are or what they said. And what they say.

[3:05:23] And they go, I said, you guys must be, I was like, at SpaceX, you guys must just like have to... [3:05:27] Don't you have to edit out like UFOs that you get? [3:05:30] And the person just looked at me and they just said, [3:05:33] Elon's really close with the federal government. That was all they said. Good. All right. Let's play this. I don't know. [3:05:39] It doesn't look like much. Just play it. [3:05:44] What am I looking at? This is her video in here. I think she zooms in. [3:05:51] I don't know what we're looking at. [3:05:53] It's here in Texas. [3:05:56] What are you looking at, lady? [3:06:01] Okay. [3:06:03] It's like most UFO videos. It's just a dot. It gets better? 30 seconds, guys. Come on. I'm tripping out right now. [3:06:11] She's tripping. [3:06:15] You know her? Is she your friend? What the fuck is that? [3:06:20] Is she intoxicated while this is happening? No, no, she's not. And this is like not far from here. [3:06:24] It's somewhere in Texas. [3:06:25] I think she zooms in at the end. I know. No? No? [3:06:30] Well, we've still got 10 seconds for it to get good. [3:06:35] My god, what? [3:06:37] Oh, she doesn't? I thought she had a... [3:06:39] Once she showed me, she zoomed in on it as much better. Disappointing. We probably should have looked at that before. Just cut that all out. All right. Let's wrap it up. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Joe. Thanks for being here. All right. Bye, everybody.

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